Hello to All Edsel Ford Students, Parents and Families,
I hope this finds you all safe and well. It is my hope that everyone had a restful and safe Thanksgiving break, and I know we all are looking forward to our upcoming Holiday break and the closeout of the first semester.
Sadly, due to Covid-19, many of the traditional holiday events and performances planned for the winter season will not be taking place as we are used to. We truly miss them and you, however, we look forward to the return of those and other events in the future.
We are grateful to our families and staff who have embraced and respected our health and safety protocols. I would also like to acknowledge our Edsel Ford teachers and staff for their tireless efforts over the past 5 months. Their dedication and commitment have enabled students to learn in a safe and productive environment. We also thank you, our families, whose understanding and resilience have helped us immensely along the way.
I would like to stress that in this remote environment we have seen our potential course failures increase – there are numerous and obvious reasons for this. I wanted to share some of the things we have done to combat that:
- Continuous 2 way communication with students and parents regarding student achievement
- Face to Face and Remote Learning Labs for intervention and enrichment
- Virtual Parent Teacher Conferences
- MTSS weekly phone calls and administrator home visits
- Individual letters mailed to students regarding 1st card marking performance and performance concerns
Those are just a few of the things we have done to help students improve and pass their classes in order to earn their credits.
Here is what we are asking parents and students to do between now and January 22nd when the card marking and semester ends:
- Check Parent Connect for current status of grades
- Contact teachers immediately of classes where a student is in danger of failing (D or less right now)
- Find out what the student can do to raise their grade and pass and earn the credit
- Take advantage of the break to complete any missing work
- Take advantage of the 3 weeks after we get back from break to attend all remote classes, learning labs, complete all assignments, and prepare for summative assessments
- Students should prepare for their “summative experience” which will replace the traditional final exam.
We will not have the traditional final exams or final exam schedule this year, instead all teachers will provide all students with a summative experience that will serve as the end of semester final exam. The summative experience may be used to determine proficiency/mastery of the learning that occurred during the 1st semester. The summative experience could look like a unit test, paper, presentation/interview, performance, project or some other way to assess learning.
The summative experiences will start after Thursday, January 14th– They will end on Friday, January 22nd. Teachers will communicate to students what and when these will take place.
Here is what the specific end of semester schedule looks like at this point:
January
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
| 18 MLK JrDay No School | 19 A Day | 20 B Day | 21 A Day | 22B DayAM: Zoom 4,5 & 6PM: teacher Duty Time |
| 25A DayAM: Zoom 1,2 & 3PM: Teacher Duty Time | 26B DayAM: Zoom 4,5 & 6PM: District PD | 27 A Day | 28 B Day | 29 A Day |
1/25 and 1/26’s AM schedule is subject to change
Here is the January Calendar for the entire month:
On behalf of the administrative team and the entire staff and faculty, we want to wish our parents, students and community a safe and joyous holiday season. Please stay safe and well.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Feliz Navidad, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Joyeuz Noel, and Milad Majid!! We wish you all a hopeful, joyous and safe 2021!!
All my best,
Principal Casebolt