Dear Brebeuf Jesuit Students and Families,
We are thrilled to be able to welcome students back to campus for in-person learning beginning August 13. We have been looking forward to this day since the spring. We've enjoyed our summer opportunities together, from online summer classes in June, to athletics and in-person summer school in July. These have taught us a lot about how to operate our school safely in this environment, and I feel we are as prepared as we could possibly be for a successful start to the year. I can't tell you how thankful I am for all aspects of the Brebeuf Jesuit community at this time.
As we promised last Thursday following the Marion County Public Health Department (MCPHD) orders for schools, the information below this email is to provide more detail on how our "hybrid" system will work. We have also updated several pieces of our campus reopening plan for the Fall 2020 semester, which can be found at brebeuf.org/reopening and which I've pulled out below to summarize the new information.
As a reminder, Fr. Bill Verbryke, S.J. and I will hold our fourth campus reopening update and live Q&A on Zoom this Wednesday, August 5, at 11:00 a.m. Click here to presubmit a question for the Q&A. You will also have the opportunity to ask questions live during the session.
Families can click this link to join the Zoom Q&A on Wednesday at 11:00 a.m.
AMDG,
Greg VanSlambrook
Principal
Hybrid In-Person/Online Academic Schedule
The goal of the hybrid system is to best enable physical distancing and minimize risk by reducing the number of students in the building each day, while still giving every student the opportunity for in-person learning. The MCPHD order of July 30, 2020 required all high schools greater than 400 students in Marion County to adopt hybrid systems to reduce building capacity to 50%, until further notice.
Our hybrid system first breaks students into cohorts. These are labeled as Maroon and Gold for in-person learning, and Silver for the small group of students who have elected to start the semester fully online. We have divided the Maroon and Gold groups in a method that seeks to balance class sizes as much as possible, and also to keep siblings together, and to honor as many of the carpool requests as possible that we received by the August 1 deadline. You will soon receive in your email a course schedule update from Amy Pitcher, which will identify your cohort - Maroon, Gold, or Silver - above your schedule.
To preserve the benefits of the new 8-day rotation schedule that we created last year and tested with students in January, we will go ahead with adopting our new schedule for Fall 2020, even as we start the year in this hybrid setup. Every student will attend in-school classes for the same number of days across the 8-day cycle.
For the first 8-day cycle, Maroon cohort will attend in-person on the odd days, 1, 3, 5, and 7; while Gold cohort will attend in-person on the even days, 2, 4, 6, and 8. Then for the second 8-day cycle, they will switch; with Gold attending in-person on days 1, 3, 5, and 7, and Maroon on 2, 4, 6, and 8. This switching from one cycle to the next is necessary so that students in both of the cohorts spend equal time in-person for each of their classes. We've created this visual on our website to show which days the cohorts attend in-person over the first two 8-day cycles. We will give students further instructions and tools on how to organize their calendars, on the first days of school.
On the days that students do not attend school in-person, they will join their classes from home using Google Meet. They will use the same daily class schedule as those in-person, as they will be joining each class and participating live as it happens. Please click here for instructions on how to find and join your classes, and information about IT support. We will also provide more instructions and guidance for all students on best practices and expectations for home learning, in the coming days.
Students, your teachers will expect that when you are home, you join each of your classes daily, unless they specifically instruct you otherwise beforehand, or unless you are sick and a parent has contacted the school attendance line. If you do not join a class, it will count as an absence just like an in-person class does. Accumulating excessive absences in a single semester will mean that you cannot receive credit for a course. If you are sick, we do not expect you to still attend class from home. In that case, please have a parent contact the attendance line at attendance@brebeuf.org or 317.524.7118 to let us know.
Launch Days: Thursday, August 13 (Maroon) and
Friday, August 14 (Gold and Silver)
In order for every student to meet each of their teachers on the “First day of school”, we have created two special LAUNCH DAYS on August 13 (Maroon) and August 14 (Gold and Silver).
Students will attend each of their classes based on a special schedule. Students may either bring their own lunch or purchase it in the cafeteria. The information and teacher welcome will be identical and repeated on those days for each cohort group.
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Gold - Live, All Day Silver - Join from Home, All Day
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Students will only attend class on ONE launch day. The full launch day schedule will be posted soon.
We look forward to welcoming each cohort on its “First Day of School” Launch day.
School photos and Student IDs: Thursday, August 13 and Friday, August 14
All students will need to come to the East Gym during their break period on their Launch Day, to have their photo taken for the yearbook and for their student ID, which will be printed and given to them right there. Silver students should plan to come to the East Gym on Thursday August 13 anytime between 7:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. for this purpose; and they can leave right afterwards.
Lockers
In keeping with the Marion County Public Health Department order, school lockers will not be assigned to students for the time being. Students should plan to carry their belongings from class to class with them. Students may drop off athletic gear in their athletic locker rooms or the athletics office each morning.
Drop-off and Pick-up
Brebeuf Jesuit’s campus will be open at 7:30 a.m. each morning. The first class period begins at 8:30 a.m. The last class period ends at 3:20 p.m., and we ask that students who are not staying for a practice or other activities wait outside the gym lobby to be picked up by 4:00 p.m.
New for fall 2020: at pickup time, 3:20-4:00 p.m., students will be required to keep their masks on in the gym lobby AND in the outdoor courtyard area during that time. The July experience has shown us that physical distance to be non-masked is not feasible at the crowded pick-up time.
After-school activities
Brebeuf Jesuit's policy for this school year is that all students may come to campus to participate in any after-school activity (such as athletics, theatre, community service, etc.) as long as they meet our health self-screening requirements, whether they are attending school in-person or online on a given day. For this reason, all students including those who are learning online, will be asked to complete the Brebeuf self-screening app each day, anytime you are coming to campus.
Senior privileges
Seniors will continue to have the opportunity to leave campus during their break periods, if they wish. We will of course ask that all seniors be mindful of safe practices regarding COVID-19 as they leave campus and return.