Dear Tuscarora Elementary Families,
As a result of the Governor's decision this past week to keep school buildings closed for the remainder of this academic school year, FCPS is offering an additional resource that students may want to use to connect with teachers to gain continuity of learning support with live video conferencing. Tuscarora Elementary has been part of the pilot program for this new type of support for the last few weeks, but some things have changed. Please review this communication carefully. With the county implementation beginning, TuES will adapt our program to meet the new FCPS guidelines for this type of virtual support. Some of these guidelines are different from our pilot. By Monday, May 18, participating teachers will send families their new days and times for virtual support. Teachers will be ready to answer students' questions, provide modeling of the assigned work, or to give additional feedback on specific skills and assignments. There will not be direct instruction of new material in the Google Meet; it is intended to provide support to students. How do I provide permission for my child to participate? The email coming from teachers will include permission information. Parent permission is required for any student to participate. The email contains the details required for a parent to determine if permission will be granted and will direct the reply to the teacher to grant or deny permission. If I already completed a permission form for TuES, do I need to give permission again? No, if you already gave permission during the pilot, your child continues to have permission. Please review the new permission form as it contains new information. If you determine that you want to revoke permission for your child to participate in virtual support sessions, please email the teacher letting them know. Does my child have to join the Google Meet? As in the pilot, there is no expectation that all students join the Google Meet; it is completely optional and each student can determine whether he/she needs to join to receive support. It could be that students join some but not all offered sessions and/or a student would not necessarily need to attend the whole session. When will sessions be scheduled? Teachers will share specific times with their students.These times may be different from the times during the pilot. Does my child have to stay in the Meet the whole time? No. The use of Google Meet is intended to be a flexible approach where students can join and leave any time during a designated teacher session. Is it safe for my child to join an online video platform? Safety measures are that students can only join the meeting with the link provided by the teacher. It is not public. Students are not allowed to share the link with friends, so only the teacher and his/her students have access. Again, by Monday, May 18, participating teachers will provide information to their students including days and times of Google Meet sessions, information about how to access Google Meet to participate, behavior expectations/guidelines for all participants, and the permission form. We remain #FCPSProud of the amazing response from our students, families and staff during Continuity of Learning. We're pleased to extend this additional option to enhance learning for our students. Please watch for details from your child's teacher(s). If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to our front office.