August 12, 2020

August 12, 2020

Dear SFUSD Staff:

Here we are—days before another new school year. To those who are returning this week, welcome back. To those who’ve been working for weeks or months to plan for the new school year, we’re in the home stretch. As we embark upon this new year, remember to take good care of yourself and your loved ones.

Updates

Distance Learning in the Fall

We just completed a Family Distance Learning Guide. It is posted on sfusd.edu and is a complement to other information on our website and communication from your child(ren)’s school. We are in the process of having the guide’s content translated and will also be sure the contents of the guide (not just the PDF) are posted online for ease of reading in the next few days. 

Need More Tech Support?

To augment available SFUSD technology support for teachers and families, we’re collaborating with the San Francisco Education Fund to bring you  tech volunteers who are available to provide 1-on-1 phone and video support on basic questions about Zoom, Google Meet, Google Classroom, and Seesaw. Appointments are available in Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Armenian, Cambodian, French, German, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Tagalog, Tamil, Telugu, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Volunteers can support you for up to 30 minutes. 

Sign-up for 1:1 appointments at https://booking.appointy.com/volunteertechsupport

Coordinated Care Plan for Wellness & Partnership

Student Family Community Support Division: The focus of SFCSD work this year will be developing systems and structures across our division to support the site-based Coordinated Care Teams (CCT). 

SFCSD has created a Wellness and Partnership Team. This team will work across our division to integrate existing work from Culture and Climate, Student Assistance Program (SAP), Family Partnership Team (FP-PIP), and Attendance Review Team (SART) into ONE process. The SFCSD Wellness and Partnership Team  will provide support and consultation to the site based coordinated care team.  Things this team is currently working on:

  • Clarifying the process for SFCSD Team to provide support/communicate with CCT Teams
  • Designing  training & support materials for CCT members
  • Updating existing materials and tools to be shared with CCT on Tier 1 supports
  • Clarifying  protocol for CCT to support moving through Tiers 1-3 

The site based Coordinated Care Team (CCT) integrates pre-existing teams including Culture and Climate, Student Assistance Program (SAP), Family Partnership Team (FP-PIP), and Attendance Review Team (SART) into ONE team: The Coordinated Care Team (CCT). This section provides an overview of the Coordinated Care Team process and purpose. As we “come back to school,” we have a charge to do something different. To deepen our commitment to social justice and work toward equity, we are introducing the site based Coordinated Care Team (CCT) as a structure that coordinates the school-based support services under a solution-focused and Anti-Racist healing practice to develop school-wide and in classrooms systems to best support our students, families, and staff.

DoT Digital Learning Office Hours/Webinars

Thank you to everyone who joined us on Monday, August 10 at Digital District Day. Session recordings will be posted by the end of the week. 

The support continues! The Department of Technology (DoT) Digital Learning Team offers a range of supports for teachers and staff during distance learning.

  • Office Hours: Daily drop in consultation sessions for educators to ask questions about distance learning tools and strategies. Find days and hours on the Professional Learning calendar.
  • Webinars: Live and recorded informational and interactive sessions that introduce and expand teaching practices utilizing foundational tools, applications and platforms are facilitated by the Digital Learning Team daily beginning 8/14. Webinars building on digital learning beyond foundational practices begin on 8/31. Find days and hours in the Professional Learning directory.

Technology Resources to Share with your Families

Family Technology Resources, including videos in multiple languages, are available at sfusd.edu/familytechnology. With the expansion of technology access for PK-2 students who need it, we’ve created new resources specifically designed to support PK-2nd families with technology:

Support School Sites in Distribution

This year our school start-up is like no other and we are thankful so many of you for supporting our schools in so many different ways. Schools are coordinating their materials distribution, including technology and instructional materials and they need our help.

If available in the next few weeks please consider signing up to support a school site. We have morning, afternoon, and full-day shifts to make it easy to find something that will fit your schedule. We are taking the precautions to safeguard our staff with PPE, Distant Placement, and other measures. If you feel you can contribute your time to a site please sign up here, there is more detailed information on the form.

QTEA Innovation Award Application Now Open

Applicants for an Innovation Award to receive financial and coaching support to redesign a part of school in these times to more effectively reach and teach our students, particularly those least reached! The iLab has simplified the application and program to support schools through a rapid redesign process and funding to immediately implement ideas. For additional information and links to the application see the 20-21 QTEA Innovation Award Flyer. Applications are due by September 4th. 

Update on SFUSD Meal Sites at Community-Based Organizations

Due to USDA policies, these meal sites will close after August 21:

  • Chinatown YMCA 
  • Stonestown YMCA
  • Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation
  • The Village (Visitacion Valley) 

The Ship Shape Community Center will continue and will serve SFUSD students on Treasure Island. We are grateful for how these community partners stepped up to serve children March through August and hope to partner again in the future.

Notice of Changes to CEP Sites

For the 20-21 school year, 22 SFUSD schools are no longer eligible for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). Through CEP, all students are offered meals at no cost regardless of household income or form submission. While students at these schools would normally complete the Multipurpose Family Income Form to help with school funding, this year, families will need to submit the form to qualify for free or reduced-price school meals. Please encourage families to apply online for school meal benefits.

Grab & Go Meals Now Available to SFUSD Students Only

As the school year begins with distance learning, SFUSD Student Nutrition Services will continue to provide nutritious school meals for students. Beginning August 19, meals will be available to SFUSD students only. This change is due to USDA policies. Families must provide the student’s barcode for their meal account when picking up meals. Each student’s barcode will be mailed to households by August 18. For families that did not receive their barcode, or need assistance, SNS will provide assistance at select sites on August 21. 

Free meals are available to students who qualify or attend CEP schools. If a student is not eligible for free or reduced-price meals, $22.50 per bag will be charged to their SchoolCafe account. Learn more and help families apply at sfusd.edu/MFIF. View the list of sites and schedules at sfusd.edu/schoolfood. 

Volunteer & Help Students Access School Meals

Student Nutrition Services has volunteer opportunities for SFUSD employees!

Questions? Email SchoolLunch@sfusd.edu.

Enrollment: Wait Pool and 10 Day Count

EPC will be conducting a Wait Pool for schools from August 17 to September 4 to equitably assign students to open seats. In prior years, school no-show students if they don’t attend the first 3 days of school. With COVID-19 and distance learning, we are extending the window to the first 10 days of school. Instructions and detailed information can be found here.

Distance Learning - First 30 Days and Beyond

Required Districtwide PD for Launching the Year:

Two Asynchronous Professional Development Modules are required for the start of the 20-21 school year. These asynchronous modules are playlists, about an hour each, and designed to be done during the week of 8/11 to support schools to have a baseline about distance learning, authentic partnership and anti racist healing practices. They should be completed no later than 9/14.

Sites can make the decision to have educators complete these modules during the 7 hour work day independently, as grade levels, departments or collaborative teams or incorporate the content into the synchronous parts of the site based professional development to make sense of the content together. All educators should complete the modules no later than 9/13.

Launch Units - Starting the year

Please use or adapt these lessons to meet the needs of your students. They are now posted in the grade level Google Classrooms found on the district’s instructional pages for COVID-19 as well as in the First 30 day supports.

Synchronous PD on August 13th 

We look forward to introducing the Launching Units to teachers on August 13th and providing elementary teachers time to orient teachers to the structure of the units, lessons, resources and provide tips for customizing materials to meet the needs of your site and classroom community. 

Here is the schedule for August 13 Professional Development for Elementary teachers.  K-5 sessions: 8:30-10:00 and 10:30-12:00 divided by grade level.

Specific role alike sessions are also required for PK, Middle and High School Teachers - see the SFUSD Professional Learning Site for more information.

To find other resources and available PD, here are some links to support you to find what you need:

Bright Spot

Support from private funders has helped us with both the immediate needs brought on by the pandemic and the long term transformation called for in Vision 2025. The Someland Foundation, which has been giving to SFUSD since 2015, has granted $10 million toward the $25 million we are seeking for our SF Unified Access initiative. This funding will support devices, wifi, teacher training, and family tech support. Salesforce, now in their 8th year of grantmaking to SFUSD, has granted $9 million for this upcoming school year. Salesforce funding is making it possible for SFUSD to implement the nation's first comprehensive PreK-12 Computer Science curriculum, train hundreds of aspiring educators to enter the teaching workforce, and enable middle grades school leaders to innovate through direct funding allocations for school site priorities.

Warm regards,

Superintendent Dr. Vincent Matthews

 

This page was last updated on August 12, 2020