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Barclay Bulletin

October 4, 2020

Barclay BulletinOctober 4, 2020

Struggling With Technology?

There have been a variety of resources from the district related to accessing Teams, but you may be struggling how to access certain features related to your child's Teams tiles. If this describes you, and you would like some individualized training, please reach out to Barclay School and we will arrange a private tutorial session to alleviate your struggles. These individualized sessions will work best if your student attends with you, and we access their account with their device. Times are flexible for the upcoming week, depending on availability of our trainers. Please call our office at 637-1840 to set up an appointment.

Students Working at Home

Our curriculum content is being delivered to students who are either hybrid or fully remote. Remote students will continue to follow the assignment guidelines sent by the teacher(s) and turn in their assignments digitally. Hybrid students will submit assignments digitally when they are on their remote days (unless otherwise instructed by their teacher) and receive live instruction and independent work times during their time in the classroom.


Hybrid students should be treating their remote days as a day of school. While I realize that schedules and child care arrangements may make it difficult to complete assignments during the day, please work to have the assignments completed before the following day students are physically present in school so that teachers can continue to instruct students with the new standards and curriculum. If students do not work on the assignments on days they are remote from home, they may struggle with new content when they are back in the classroom.


It may be tempting to assist students with their work. While assistance may be called for from time to time, please try to have the students working as independently as possible on their assignments. Teachers are assessing the student's ability to demonstrate proficiency on standards, and will need to know what topics will need reteaching as they move through the curriculum.


I've fielded requests for paper copies of assignments rather than having students complete their work utilizing technology. I am trying to discourage this option unless their are special circumstances which impact a student's ability to complete the work on their device. There are a couple of reasons for that thinking:


  • If we have to go fully remote, it is important for students to be able to access the technology as we might not have other options to be able to have copies produced and distributed. There will also be lag time in getting copies in the hands of families and then back to teachers.
  • Fewer items travelling back and forth between home and school will make the both environments safer for students and adults.


Thank you for your understanding as we try to get students proficient with the instruction and the technology. This has been difficult for families and teachers, but the students continue to keep getting better every day.

Health Screening

I dedicated a section in last week's bulletin to the health screening process. One additional clarification related to our internal process with this; if the health screen is not submitted by 8:10, there is a very good chance that your child will have a temperature check before they enter the classroom. This has always been the case, but we have dedicated a central location to this process now instead of traveling through the building with our health cart. Please continue to do your best to fill out the health screen by that time every morning your child is in the building. We still need to contact all families during the day if the health screen has not been completed. I appreciate all of the attention to details with this process, and I know that you may occasionally forget. Please let us know if there is a reason that makes this process unmanageable, and we will try to figure out a solution with you.