Click to view this week's video message from Superintendent Viramontez.
Topics include:
• summer and new school year planning;
• request for input from parents through Thoughtexchange; and
• access to community services on our COVID-19 resources page.
The pressures of daily life are challenging even under the best circumstances. Under the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order, some children and adults may be feeling still greater anxiety and stress, and that can have long-lasting effects. To help, our Student Services team has created an extensive list of local resources—in English and Spanish—for families to find support for a wide range of needs:
Find these resources and more on our COVID-19 resources web page.
“Safety and learning are our top priorities,” said Campbell Union School District Superintendent Shelly Viramontez. “Thanks to a long-established network of community partners—too many to list—we’ve been able to quickly connect students and their families to services and resources that are helping them stay safe and learn during the COVID-19 school closures.”
What started as a temporary, 3-week shut down on March 16th quickly evolved into a situation where more students and their families had greater needs than before. A multi-year grant from School Linked Services (SLS) supplements district funding of Community Liaisons. These school-based staffers were able to immediately start contacting families to determine their needs and connect them to district supports of computer devices and meals as well as local assistance, groceries, diaper kits, gas card donations, informing families of help with rent, cell phone service, internet connectivity, emergency dental services, and much more.
“It is not easy for large systems, like a school district, to make a rapid change because that change can affect so many people in the community,” Viramontez said. “We are fortunate to have a well-established system of support that has allowed us to reach out and respond quickly to our students’ basic needs so that our teachers could pivot and modify lessons that address students’ learning from a distance, both online and in printed packets.”
She added that the district has been able to do so much more than keep students learning and keep students fed, as the Governor specified.
“An already long list of partners has grown in a few weeks,” she said. “Local businesses and individuals have said yes to our requests and are reaching out to ask how they can help. We are so grateful.”
Pictured Above: Partners from the City of San Jose and Project HOPE helped more than 60 families sign up for 60 days of free internet service, and provided other information about community resources.
Pictured Left: The district has checked out nearly 3,000 computing devices for students to use, and is working with companies to secure more internet service in district “dead spots”.
Pictured Right: A partnership with Home Church and a team of volunteers is providing 125 bags of groceries per week to district families.
Please watch this weekly video update from Dr. Viramontez, in which she talks about:
Please visit our COVID-19 web page for links to resources, ways to support wellness, and other information updates.
In addition to our district’s Monday-through-Friday meal distribution, the Santa Clara County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) will be providing weekend meals, free of charge, at three of our district locations.
Starting May 1st, Capri, Sherman Oaks and Rosemary elementary also will offer weekend meals to go on Fridays, from 11 am-12 pm. Parents and Guardians can pick up two-days-worth of student breakfast, lunch and dinner provisions.
Information about our meal distribution locations, and other resources for learning and wellness, is available on our COVID-19 resources web page.
Click to view the April 17 "Backyard Briefing" video message from Superintendent Viramontez on our Campbellusd Youtube channel.
Now that we have completed our first week of formalized distance learning, the Superintendent discusses:
We'll all get better at this as we go on.
Please visit our COVID-19 resources page for information about meal distribution, wellness activities, and community support resources.
Stay strong, stay safe, be well.
During the school closure, most of our students are participating in some online activities as part of their distance learning. We continue to stay apprised of how to protect them from “zoombomers” — mischief makers who try to break into online meetings and share inappropriate content.
Safety and learning have always been our top priorities, whether online or not. We want to let our families know the steps we have taken to assure a safe learning environment for students, staff and families.
For lessons that involve online learning, our teachers are using Google classroom, SeeSaw, and Zoom. We are continuing with Zoom.com because of the recent updates to its software: adding a password requirement, providing an automatic “waiting room” feature for teachers to allow students entry to the virtual classroom, and numerous other upgrades.
We have provided teachers with updated best practices to maximize student safety while using district-vetted programs and platforms, and our district-issued devices have extra security tools that alert us to inappropriate or unsafe content being used on them.
Our staff has investigated options and worked hard to provide all students with the opportunity to participate safely in online activities as part of their distance learning. We will continue to diligently monitor and update these precautions as necessary to maintain online safety, and are poised to respond and adjust if needed.
Parents often feel anxious about discussing their child’s learning needs with the teacher. Imagine if they don’t speak the same language?
To ensure communication between teacher and parent, our teachers have access to a telephone translation system that provides interpretation for hundreds of languages, helping them bridge that communication gap. It is especially vital as students are distance learning.
Our district values parents as partners as we educate students to their highest potential, and this interpretation tool is another way we can work together for the benefit of our students.
This week is an unusual Spring Break. Still, I hope you are making the most of this time with your family.
I want to let you know how we have been preparing for our official transition from flexible learning options to formalized distance learning (when the teacher and student are not in the same location), which will begin upon our return on April 13. In the previous three weeks, our staff has been conducting outreach and providing lessons and activities to support our students. Our aim is to offer students a sense of structure and normalcy as we all adjust to this new way of teaching, learning and living through the end of the school year. While our schools will remain closed, the learning will continue. As an organization committed to continual growth will get better as we go.
We know this has been a challenging time for all of us, and we are committed to doing what it takes to provide the essential activities of providing meals and keeping learning happening.
Since the March 16th school closure, we have distributed about 800 meals a day, and we continue to be prepared to provide meals to anyone under 18 in need of lunch and breakfast.
To support access to online learning resources, we have checked out thousands of computing devices for student use: approximately 2050 were issued earlier in the year to our middle school students through our "web to one" program; another 855 devices were checked out since the closures to families of students in grades 2-5 who have no device at home; and 445 more are being prepared for check out after April 13.
I am proud of the work our Community Liaisons have done with our families for the last two years on accessing inexpensive Internet connectivity, and we have continued to provide the information for Comcast and DirecTV free connection in English & Spanish with our meal distribution.
Our district employees remain committed to supporting our students and families. While our current situation is far different from what we imagined when the school year began, we will get through this together.
Please remember to check the COVID19 web page frequently for updates and resources, and visit your school’s website for links to information about weekly lessons.
As we reported in previous messages, all Campbell Union School District departments and schools are closed this week for the scheduled Spring Break, April 6-10. However, staff from county and city emergency services are still serving meals at several school locations this week. See updated schedule and sites here.
Starting April 13th—as the shelter-in-place continues—our own staff will resume meal services and our schools will launch a more formalized distance learning program. Please visit your school's website for details on April 13 distance learning for your child.