September 2, 2020

Dear SFUSD Staff:

As you may have heard, the City announced that they have begun to review applications of TK-6 in-person learning with limited capacity. Some of you may be wondering what this means for SFUSD. Before submitting an application for in-person instruction for students, SFUSD must prepare a staff testing plan; staff who will work in-person will need to be trained; students and families must be informed; schools need a minimum of 3 months of PPE; labor agreements need to be in place; and the Board of Education must approve. This FAQ provides more information.

Please keep reading today’s digest for more important updates.

Updates

Keep Student Passwords Secure

While sites are able to generate a report to access SFUSD usernames and passwords for multiple students or whole classes/schools, you should never share a document with a list of student emails and passwords, not even with your school community. This is a violation of privacy for the involved students, as well as a data breach with serious implications. Teachers should only have passwords for the students in their classes and whole school access is limited to a core group of school administration.

Parents and guardians should only be able to access the username and password of their own student. If families do not have their child’s SFUSD Google login, they are able to find their username and password through ParentVUE (portal.sfusd.edu) under “Student Info/Accept Offer” tab. 

New ParentVUE Features

EMERGENCY CARDS

By completing the emergency card online, families are able to update their student’s health information, emergency contacts, and upload health forms and immunization records. They are also able to update their contact information including their phone number, email address, and mailing address. Please visit sfusd.edu/emergencycard for step-by-step instructions. 

PARENTVUE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Starting Sept. 3, families will be able to submit and/or download the following Family Rights forms:

• Technology Acceptable Use Agreement
• Consent for Video Recording during Virtual Class
• Media Consent 
• Information about the Multipurpose Family Income Form

Once logged in to ParentVUE, families will see “Acknowledgements” pop up. All the forms and instructions will be available in all six languages. Families may visit sfusd.edu/acknowledgements for step-by-step instructions. SFUSD Staff may run the U-FP9: ParentVUE Acknowledgements report in Synergy to see who has completed their forms. 

Zoom Tip: Zoom Alert Chimes

In order to ensure that SFUSD staff knows when students/meeting participants are in waiting rooms, meeting hosts will now be notified with an alert chime that guests have joined the waiting room. This is especially important for teachers to help ensure students do not miss instructional time. 

If you wish to disable the chime, you can do so by:

• Going to sfusd.zoom.us
• Logging in (if not logged in already)
• Clicking “My Account”
• Clicking “Settings” (you may need to click “Profile” to see the Settings link)
• Toggling the setting below to off (gray) by clicking the blue and white slider on the right

Google Tip: Guardian Email Summaries in Google Classroom

Guardian email summaries from Classroom are a great way to help families stay informed on the work their student is engaging in. 

It’s easy to get started! Just turn it on in your class’ settings (video), and then on the People tab, add parent/guardian emails for each student (video). You can access parent/guardian emails from Synergy.

Parents and guardians will receive an invitation email they will need to accept before they can start to receive these summary emails, and guardians may need to check their spam folder to find it.

Once a guardian accepts an invite for Google summaries in one class, they are automatically added to all of the student’s other classes in Classroom. 

You can also direct families to our guardian email summaries webpage to learn more about this built-in feature of Classroom. See an example of a guardian email summary. 

Good News: Grab & Go Meals Are Now Free for All Students

Starting Sept. 1, SFUSD’s grab and go meal program is free for all students again. Previously we had communicated that students who don’t qualify for free or reduced-priced meals would be charged.

Thanks to a recent policy change by the USDA, the meal program is now free for all students regardless of income eligibility.

Every Wednesday from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., a bag of 5 days' worth of meals (including breakfast, lunch, supper, fresh fruits and vegetables, and milk) is available for each student.  For locations and more information on what to bring to pick up meals, visit sfusd.edu/schoolfood.

Some families have expressed that the meal pick up time does not work for them. A parent survey is being conducted on convenient meal pickup times, and more information will be shared soon.

SF Loves Learning TV Show Season 2 Begins Sept. 14

Beginning Monday, Sept. 14, we will be airing an hour long episode at 2 p.m. on weekdays on KTVU Plus, aimed toward PK-2nd grade students.

The show will provide daily culturally affirming academic, social emotional, movement, and creative content from SFUSD educators, students, families, and community partners. It will also model SFUSD's Core Values, develop students' Graduate Profile (life) skills, and provide opportunities to showcase their work.

SFUSD will post segments of each episode on the day it is airing on the SFUSD YouTube Channel, which will be linked from the SF Loves Learning webpage. You can find all past episodes on our webpage.

How to submit content for the SF Loves Learning TV Show: We invite any community member to share 1-5 minute content aimed toward PK-2nd graders you would like us to consider airing on the show—lessons, activities, celebrations, greetings, stories, etc. Review this guidance document for tips on producing quality clips, then submit your content using this Community Voices Submission Form. We will let you know if we are able to air your clip on the show.

How to watch KTVU Plus on TV:

• Broadcast Channel - 36
• AT&T - 1006
• Comcast - 6 / 706
• DirectTV - 36
• DISH - 36
• WAVE - 92 / 201

SFUSD Family Technology Webinars

To support distance learning this fall, the SFUSD Department of Technology is partnering with the City and County of San Francisco and the San Francisco Public Library to provide Family Technology webinars to our families to help them support their students' basic technical needs throughout distance learning.  

Our first scheduled webinar is "SFUSD Device Set-Up: Chromebooks and WiFi Hotspots". Join us on YouTube Live on Thursday Sept. 3 from 6 to 7 p.m. For more details visit sfusd.edu/family-webinars.

Support Students with Activating Their Library Cards

On Tuesday, Sept. 1, SF Public Library emailed library card numbers to all SFUSD students.

School staff, please help students activate their library cards, check out eBooks, and place holds on print books at "SFPL to Go" locations throughout the city.

SFUSD librarians have curated hyperlinked lists of recommended titles that your students can check out. Please find these lists and other resources at our temporary site, sfusdlib.org. 

Reminders

Board to Vote on New Student Assignment Policy for Elementary Schools in December 2020

If the Board adopts a new policy in December 2020, it would likely go into effect for students enrolling in Kindergarten for the 2023-24 school year. To learn more and be part of the process, start here: What’s Happening with Student Assignment.

Family Digest

Read today's family digest.

Warm regards,
Superintendent Dr. Vincent Matthews