Updated Technology Agreement

Over the past few weeks, we have grown in our understanding of the implications of remote learning and as a result have updated the ICS Technology Agreement. The summary is:

1. Students are on screens a lot more now, out of necessity, because of classwork. They also understandably miss their friends, and so Google Meet / Hangouts video time is important connection time for them. They were used to being around friends all day long, 5 days a week, and some children are now feeling isolated at home. We have included a "Tools for Success" section at the end of the document that we hope might be helpful to you. It is not part of the policy; it has thoughts for you to consider as you parent your children.

2. One of the items that has been challenging for us the past few weeks are the number of students who are participating in live video conferencing from their bedrooms in teacher-student or teacher-class interactions. We think it is important to offer live teacher-student interaction and we are hoping to do more of that, over time. We miss your children and want to stay as relationally connected as we can. We understand that everyone has a different house configuration and your child might need to have their work station setup in the bedroom (even for concentration purposes), and they might watch recorded teacher instruction from the bedroom. However, for LIVE interaction with your teachers and/or learning support staff, we ask that you find a place other than the bedroom for your child to participate in a public area of your home (dining room, kitchen, living room, hallway), sitting in a chair at a table (not lying down on the couch). We want to replicate the learning environment they have at school as much as possible. We also want to have healthy boundaries.

We are working on having this translated into Spanish and I hope to have that for you toward the end of next week sometime. Our Spanish-speaking H.S. students are helping us with that project. I think that is great!

Estamos trabajando para que esto se traduzca al español y espero tenerlo para usted a fines de la próxima semana en algún momento.

If you have any questions about the attachment, please let me know.    

Thank you, Susan Selby

CEO