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Remote Learning Launches Today!

Dear Yellowstone Families,

Monday greetings from Yellowstone! Today marks the first day of the “official launch” of our remote learning. Read on for important information and updates.

We Need to Connect With You!

At this point, we have attempted to reach out to every family in both the Academy and College Prep. If you haven’t heard from us yet, please check your voicemail to see if there is a message from one of your child’s teachers.

If there is no voicemail, you can click here to add your updated contact information and we will reach out to you at the start of this week: https://forms.gle/83SexsXHRevGCjdA8. If you have already filled out this form, there is no need for you to do it again.

Food Distribution is on Wednesday this Week

PLEASE NOTE! This week, we will be handling food distribution differently. Instead of running routes and having the cafeteria open every day, we will be doing the deliveries and grab-and-go meals on Wednesday, April 1. This will ensure greater safety with our delivery methods and also make it more convenient for our families.

On Wednesday, you will be able to pick up a week’s worth of meals for each of your children. This will be a larger box with seven breakfast meals and seven lunch meals and a gallon of milk. We will be sending more details in a separate email with the route information and times you can pick up your meal box.

Remote Learning Overview and Technology Needs

Thank you to everyone who filled out our initial survey and spoke at length last week with a Yellowstone teacher. Through this interaction, we are getting a better picture of which families do not have access to wifi or have limited access to a computing device. To date, everything we are rolling out through remote learning can be completed on a smart phone.

We have been encouraged to see the responses we have already gotten from many students and families, but we recognize that this can be limiting without the proper equipment. We will be reaching out specifically to families who have indicated they need that additional support and will be following up accordingly by midweek. In the meantime, thank you for working with us to to ensure your students continue to learn as best as possible in this current context.

Remote Learning for Yellowstone Academy

Your Academy teachers have been working diligently to provide unique lessons for each of their classes. You will be receving emails and communication from your teachers and from our Principal, Ms. Candice Lapid, over the next few days. At this point, your child’s teacher has reached out with this week’s work and will be available to assist you.

Please use class dojo or connect with your teacher directly with any questions or concerns. The remainder of this letter will be focused on the remote learning platform for YCP students, as it is different for middle and high school instruction.

Remote Learning for Yellowstone College Prep

Like the Academy, YCP staff have been working to develop a consistent way for each of our YCP students to access our instruction remotely through google classroom.

You received an email from us last week with the basics for setting up google classroom through your child’s Yellowstone email account (that message is included again at the bottom of this note). You must have done that step for the following information to make sense.

Please read through this new information carefully for how google classroom is now set up for your family:

  • Go to the Classwork section: When your student logs into their google classroom, they should click on the “classwork” link at the top of the page. There are three elements to work through:
    • Weekly announcements: we will post a video every few days that your student should click to start their day’s work
    • School Resources: in this section, you will find resources that your family will want to access, including our office hours directory, a daily schedule, and enrichment activities. We will be adding more resources to this section as the weeks progress.
    • Week 1 Work: ALL of the work that your student needs to complete will be in the “Week 1” tab for this week. This work is designed to be completed over the course of the week, and each lesson block includes a graded assignment to complete.

      The lesson blocks this first week include ELA, Math, Science, and depending on the grade level, Social Studies. In coming weeks, we will be adding additional lesson blocks in each subject, and also elective activities to complete as well.
  • The Daily Schedule: We have linked a daily schedule that we encourage your student to follow. All assignments in google classroom are due by 5:00 on Friday, so students should pace themselves through the week. We have designed this schedule so that students will have time to complete their assignments and also build their skills as independent learners. Download the Daily Schedule »
  • Office Hours: To assist your student and provide time for direct interaction with our staff, each grade level team teacher has signed up for daily office hours. These office hours are in three shifts daily from 9:00 to 11:00, 1:00 to 3:00, and 5:00 to 7:00. During those times, at least one teacher on your grade level will be directly available to assist you! The daily schedule includes their emails and phone numbers, and they will be waiting to talk with you during their office hour time.

    Please note: your BEST way to quickly get an answer to your question is to use these office hours, even if the available teacher is someone that your child has never had before or teaches a different subject than what you are working on. If you reach out to a teacher and it is not their office hour block, it may be up to 24 hours before you hear back from them. Plan accordingly and use the office hours to schedule your work for the week! Please note that office hours will start at 9:30 on Monday mornings, and there will be no office hours from 1:00 to 3:00 on Wednesdays. All other office hours are as listed on the attached document.
  • Grade Level Advisor:  In addition to office hours and the other interactive features of google classroom, your YCP student has been assigned a grade level advisor. Each of these advisors has been given 12-15 families that they will be connecting with every week. This is the teacher who called you last week, and you will receive another email from them today.

    Your advisor is here to make sure your student gets everything they need to have a successful week. Even outside of office hours, this advisor will be your best resource to answer your questions and provide additional support, so please feel free to use them!

On a final note, all of this will take patience and flexibility as we learn together how to use this platform and support your family. We encourage you to sit down with your student, particularly this first week, and work through a few lessons together. As we’ve indicated here, a teacher is almost always available to provide direct assistance, so please use all of the tools we are providing here!

We are excited to work through this and look forward to updating you with additional information (and success stories from our students) in the days to come. Many thanks for embarking on this remote learning journey with us. We hope you have a great week!

Sincerely,

The Yellowstone Team

Additional information about logging onto google classroom the first time:

We are Setting up Google Classroom For Your Family

Please read this section carefully! We have set up google classroom to serve as the primary way that your student will interact with his/her teachers. Google classroom is an app that can be downloaded on your phone or tablet, and google classroom can also be accessed directly through google on your desktop, chromebook, or laptop. Once you have access to it, you will have access to all of the material that we will be creating for instruction. Here is what you need to do:

If you are using a smartphone or tablet:

  1. Download the “Google Classroom” app in your Apple or Android store.
  2. Once you have downloaded the app, it will ask you what account you want to link it to. YOU MUST USE YOUR CHILD’S EMAIL ADDRESS to access their grade level classroom.
  3. If you do not know your child’s email address, we have attached a list of student email addresses here.
  4. Once you have the email address, you will need to know their password to complete the log-in process. If your student has forgotten their password, please use this link https://forms.gle/2VAUqw7Z1mGoNk9A8 to reset their password. PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY. You should expect a response back within 2-24 hours.
  5. Once you have their email and password, when you open google classroom, it will ask you what address you want to use. You will simply type your student’s email address and password into google classroom, and you will automatically gain access to that grade level classroom.

If you are using a laptop/desktop computer or chromebook:

  1. Go to www.classroom.google.com.
  2. If you are already signed into google with your account, you will have to switch users. YOU MUST USE YOUR CHILD’S EMAIL ADDRESS to access their grade level classroom.
  3. If you do not know your child’s email address, , we have attached a list of student email addresses here.
  4. Once you have the email address, you will need to know their password to complete the log-in process. If your student has forgotten their password, please use this link https://forms.gle/2VAUqw7Z1mGoNk9A8 to reset their password. PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY. You should expect a response back within 2-24 hours.
  5. Once you have their email and password, once you are on the google classroom website, you can switch google accounts to access the YCP classrooms. After entering in your student’s email and password, you will then see your child’s grade level classroom on the screen.

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