April 24, 2020

Dear NCW Family!

Yesterday we got word that our Distance Learning process will continue through the end of the school year. This of course is not the decision we were all hoping for but it is a necessary step to continue to keep everyone in our communities and state safe and healthy.

With that decision made, we need to get some important information to all NCW families. First, we will continue with the successful distance learning plan that we have been implementing over the past few weeks. We continue to have about 80-90% engagement with our students each week and most school work is coming back complete so that we know continued learning is happening for our students! This is in part to the excellent collaboration between our families and our teachers! Thank you all for your part in the success!

As Governor Tim Walz stated, there will be NO SCHOOL on MAY 1st or 4th!!!!! These days will be used as teacher workshop days to plan for the remainder of the year and to make plans for many of our regular “end of year” needs and traditions. We hope our students and their families will use these days to relax a bit and have some fun and get ready for our final four weeks of school starting May 5th!!!!!!

There will be Child Care for Essential Workers and MEAL DELIVERY on May 1st and 4th! We will also be sending out our student work packets on Monday, May 4th….. We are also working on a special surprise for this day for our students from our staff……. Stay tuned next week for more on this!!!!

One of our goals over the next week is to make decisions about how to continue to engage our students from afar without putting extra pressure on families, still honor some of our end of the year traditions and to find ways to report end of year progress to families! Much of this information will be updated in our NCW Distance Learning Plan and will be sent to you as decisions are made.

We also strongly value the input of parents and guardians in this process. We ask our teachers to check in with you as parents when it is possible to find out how distance learning is going. Your thoughts, concerns and comments are important and can help us in decision making. Please email Ms. Niklaus or Dr. Hess or any of our teachers with your thoughts in this process!

Thank you again for partnering with us through this time of distance learning. Together we have done an amazing job during this crisis in our nation! We are proud of our NCW students, families and staff!!!!!

Sincerely,

Dr. James Hess

Superintendent

Mary Niklaus

NCW Elementary Principal

Norman County West

Distance Learning Update

Thank you NCW!