Covid-19 Update
Providence Academy Continuous Learning Plan
While our building is closed, our school is open! Our desire is to continue to show our students the love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and to encourage a love of learning. These things are not constrained to our building.
Continuous Learning Model
During the COVID-19 epidemic, Providence Academy is committed to delivering on the mission of our school through a model continuous learning.
The goal is to:
• Remain on track with the learning for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year, ensuring teachers cover the necessary standards and student outcomes required for completion of the year;
• Avoid summer work required to complete the 2019-2020 school year;
• Ensure students are prepared to move forward to the next grade level in the fall with little or no extra remediation.
Our Approach
Providence Academy is a community of educators that are committed to being prayerful, kind, understanding, and supportive of our students and families especially during these unprecedented times. We have developed a model of Continuous Learning to support this commitment. Our teachers remain responsible for teaching students – by consistently communicating with students and parents, providing asynchronous and synchronous instruction, supplying assignments, introducing new material, grading work, and giving valuable feedback to students.
Teachers have worked together to identify the standards and skill sets required in 4th quarter to complete the year. Teachers focus all live instruction (whole class, small group, and individual) for these critical elements that will help ensure students are prepared for next year.
We seek to ensure students are active in their education and learning. We are continuing to grade work in 3rd – 8th grade as grades can provide valuable feedback on student understanding and mastery of content. Grades also allow teachers to more accurately discern when students are ready for additional or new content. Such feedback also provides insight on which students may need more help now or additional support in the future, enabling teachers to adapt instruction.
At this time, we recognize we also have a great opportunity to find new ways to learn. Being outside, growing a garden, using one’s imagination, building things from spare parts, drawing, reading a new genre of book…there are countless things we can do, imagine, and make. All are wonderful ways to enhance how we see the world, and how we learn. As we continue our classroom learning, we encourage all students to use this time to be creative, and to play.
Technology
We realize continuous learning and the daily use of online resources also creates a virtual school environment. Considering this, and the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has created a wide variety of unique issues, we instated Providence Academy Continuous Learning Honor Code (see your parent login for the honor code).
Our faculty and staff participated in required professional development days which included training specific to distance/online learning, Zoom meetings, Microsoft Teams, and training on various other software. The Curriculum Committee has reviewed the online resources we are using to execute on the curriculum. Students and faculty are actively using: Padlet, SeeSaw, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Splashpad, IXL, BrainPop, BrainPop Jr., Kahoot, Commonsense and NearPod. Our online learning environment is focused on using specific websites that support our curriculum. We have streamlined the websites we use to maximize learning and minimize workloads for students, parents, and teachers.
Our Community
One of the most special things about Providence is our community. It is a blessing to be able to cultivate our community even during this time. We are making every effort to ensure some of our very special events will happen! We are excited to launch the first ever virtual Entrepreneur Fair and host our traditional Middle School Declamation online! We are even busy planning our kindergarten, 5th grade and 8th grade graduations – of course, dates and “place” to be determined!
The Reality 
We realize continuous learning presents many challenges. We know this is not easy. This is certainly not the way we envisioned the 4th quarter! We pray daily for our students and are trusting the Lord for the strength and wisdom to teach students at home with love and grace. Families who are facing any challenges with technology or any other issues are encouraged to work one-on-one with teachers to ensure ongoing support and continuity of their education.
Additionally, while we know God is working in our lives and the world around us, He is also giving us the gift of time. We fully anticipate and respect that families may choose to engage in family activities during the school day. Teachers will work with students to make up work. Family time is essential!
For more specific information on curriculum, parent communication, and other COVID-19 resources, please login through your parent account.
PARENT RESOURCES
• https://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/talking-with-kids-about-the-coronavirus/
• https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/children-coronavirus/
• https://ministry-to-children.com/bible-verse-about-covid-19-coronavirus/
• https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
• https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/managing-stress-anxiety.html
