SECONDARY – MIDDLE/HIGH SCHOOLS HYBRID with SYNCHRONOUS LEARNING
For schools to open and meet the state’s social distancing requirement, students may be divided into multiple groups with only one group of students onsite at any given time. When a student is not onsite, they will participate in some form of Distance Learning, either Synchronous or Asynchronous.
For the students who will be onsite, there are multiple ways to divide these students into small groups. Some districts have decided to divide their students based on their last name. As an example, all students with a last name A-L will attend school at one time, and students with a last name M-Z will attend school at a different time. This method creates some problems that the district must accept or resolve. The total number of students may be divided evenly, but each grade level may not be divided evenly. Parent requests for specific days/times, and siblings with different last names needs to be considered.
For the students who will be onsite, the procedure outlined below will divide the students evenly by grade level, teacher, and gender. This procedure is a guide to show you the tools that can be used in Aeries to help simplify your task. Modify this procedure to meet the specific requirements that your district/school has to open school.
To group students, this example will use the Scheduling Group (SG) field in the STU table, the Scheduling Group (SG) field in the SMS table, the Team Course Group (CG) field in the SMS table, and the Team Number (TM) field in the SMS table. If you are using any of these fields to group students, then this solution may not work for your school.
The fields used in this example are populated with drop-down lists. These drop-down lists are in the COD table and are usually maintained by district personnel. The values for the Scheduling Group field are stored in MST.SG, the values for the Team Course Group field are stored in MST.CG, and the values for the Perm Lock field are stored in SSS.PL.
If you have already locked, or perm locked, students into sections, then you need to know who those students are and what sections they were locked into.
In this example, students identified to be onsite will be divided into 2 groups, with a third group being the students in full-time Synchronous Distance Learning. Each class will be divided into 2 groups of onsite students, plus a group of full-time Synchronous Distance Learning students. Your district/school may divide the students into a different number of groups, but the logic to do so is the same. The days of the week that students are onsite may be different for each district/school.
- Monday & Wednesday = The first group of onsite students will attend school, the other group of onsite students will participate in Synchronous Distance Learning, plus all of the full-time Synchronous Distance Learning students.
- Tuesday & Thursday = The second group of onsite students will attend school, the other group of onsite students will participate in Synchronous Distance Learning, plus all of the full-time Synchronous Distance Learning students.
- Friday = All students participate in Synchronous Distance Learning.
The first step is to identify the onsite students and the full-time Synchronous Distance Learning students. To do this, the Scheduling Group field in the STU table will be used. In this example, the Scheduling Group code of “OS” will be used for the onsite students and the Scheduling Group code of “SL” will be used for the full-time Synchronous Distance Learning students.
1. The Scheduling Group field can be populated one student at a time, or the QUERY CHANGE command and the QUERY CHANGE Button can be used. However, you must have the appropriate rights in security before you can use either QUERY feature.
2. Determine the largest group of students: onsite or Synchronous Distance Learning. For this example, the onsite group was chosen as the largest group. This will reduce the number of individual students that need the Scheduling Group changed.
3. Use QUERY to mass change every student to have a Scheduling Group of OS: CHANGE STU SG TO “OS”
4. Then use the LIST Command: LIST STU SN NM GR GN SG If you prefer to list the students by grade level, then add BY GR to the QUERY statement. If you prefer to list one grade level at a time, then add IF GR = ## to the Query statement.
5. After the list is displayed, you can use the CHANGE Button.
6. Lock the columns except Scheduling Group.
7. Change the Scheduling Group for the full-time Synchronous Distance Learning students from “OS” to “SL”.
The next step is to create/modify sections in the Scheduling Master Schedule (SMS table). Before you begin, it is recommended that you schedule students as if all students will be onsite every school day. Get to 100% or as close as possible.
Each class will be divided into multiple sections. This example will divide one section into three sections. The Scheduling Group field in the SMS table will be used to separate the onsite students from the full-time Synchronous Distance Learning students. The sections for the onsite students will have a Scheduling Group code of “OS”. The sections for the full-time Synchronous Distance Learning students will have a Scheduling Group code of “SL”. All sections must have a Scheduling Group code of “OS” or “SL”.
The Team Course Group and Team Number fields will be used to randomly split the onsite students into 2 groups, one group of students attending school on Monday & Wednesday and the other group of students attending school on Tuesday & Thursday. For this example, a Team Course Group code of “A” and the Team Numbers 1 & 2 were chosen. All sections that have a Scheduling Group code of “OS” must have a Team Course Group code of “A”, and a Team Number of 1 or 2. All sections that have a Scheduling Group code of “SL” must have a blank in the Team Course Group field and a Team Number of 0.
1. The Scheduling Group, Team Course Group, and Team Number fields can be populated one section at a time, or the QUERY CHANGE command and the QUERY CHANGE Button can be used. However, you must have the appropriate rights in security before you can use either QUERY feature.
a. Use QUERY to mass change every section to have a Scheduling Group of OS: CHANGE SMS SG TO “OS”
b. Use QUERY to mass change every section to have a Team Course Group of A: CHANGE SMS CG TO “A”
c. Use QUERY to mass change every section to have a Team Number of 1: CHANGE SMS TM TO 1
d. Now every section is for the onsite students who will attend school on Monday & Wednesday.
2. Each section must now be copied to create a section for the students attending school on Tuesday & Thursday, and a section for the full-time Synchronous Distance Learning students.
a. To copy sections, you can use the Scheduling Master Schedule page or the SMS Board.
b. Display one section to work on.
c. Leave the Split-Term and the Days of the Week as MTWTF. This is necessary for attendance.
d. Copy the section, but do not copy or move any students.
e. On the copied section, all fields will keep the same values, except the Team Number. Change the Team Number to 2. This section is for the students attending school on Tuesday & Thursday.
f. Copy the section from the step above. Most fields will keep the same values, but not all. Change the Scheduling Group code to “SL”, the Team Course Group to a blank and the Team Number to 0. This section is for the full-time Synchronous Distance Learning students.
g. You have now taken one section and created 3 sections. Repeat for ALL sections!
3. Decide what to do with the locked and perm locked students.
a. If you want all of the locked students to stay in the section that was originally locked, then do nothing.
b. If some of the locked students need to attend school on a different day, or to be in full-time Synchronous Distance Learning, then you must re-lock those students into a different section.
4. Decide what to do with siblings.
a. If you, or the parents, want siblings to attend school on the same day, then lock one section for each sibling that meets on the desired day.
b. If you, or the parents, want siblings to attend school on different days, then lock one section for each sibling, choosing sections that meet on different days.
c. The section that you lock may create a conflict when the student is scheduled. If this happens, then lock the student into a different section that meets on the same day.
5. Schedule all students.
a. Since every section has a Scheduling Group of “OS” or “SL”, then students with a Scheduling Group of “OS” will be scheduled into sections with a matching Scheduling Group of “OS”, and students with a Scheduling Group of “SL” will be scheduled into sections with a matching Scheduling Group of “SL”.
b. If a student is scheduled into one section with a Team Course Group of A and a Team Number of 1, then all of that student’s sections will have a Team Course Group of A and a Team Number of 1. If a student is scheduled into one section with a Team Course Group of A and a Team Number of 2, then all of that student’s sections will have a Team Course Group of A and a Team Number of 2.
6. Decide how to notify parents which days their student attends school. Parents who requested Synchronous Distance Learning should have been notified when their request was approved.
a. QUERY may be used to identify students attending school on Monday & Wednesday. LIST STU SSS SMS STU.SN STU.NM STU.GR STU.GN IF SMS.TM = 1
b. QUERY may be used to identify students attending school on Tuesday & Thursday. LIST STU SSS SMS STU.SN STU.NM STU.GR STU.GN IF SMS.TM = 2
c. QUERY may be used to identify students in the Synchronous Distance Learning sections. LIST STU SN NM GR GN IF SG = “SL”
d. If you have copied your SSS and SMS tables to the SEC and MST tables, then the QUERY statements for 6a and 6b would change to:
LIST STU SEC MST STU.SN STU.NM STU.GR STU.GN IF MST.TM = 1
LIST STU SEC MST STU.SN STU.NM STU.GR STU.GN IF MST.TM = 2
Glossary
- Hybrid – Some days onsite, some days distance learning • Distance Learning – Instruction in which the pupil and instructor are in different locations and pupils are under the general supervision of a certified employee of the local educational agency
- Synchronous – two-way, real-time/live, virtual instruction between teachers and student when students are not on campus
- Asynchronous – students at home participating at different times. Instruction may include various forms of digital and online learning, prerecorded video lessons or game-based learning tasks that students complete on their own, and pre-assigned work and formative assessments made available to students on paper
- Independent Study – student enrolled in district’s IS program