The start of the 2020-2021 school year has brought a few changes to public school education in the State of Michigan. Amongst those changes is the fact that the Michigan Department of Education has waived the clock hour's requirement of 1,098 hours. Schools still must meet for a minimum of 180 days of instruction. After meeting with our District Leadership Team, we have opted to take advantage of this change in clock-hour requirement. As such, effective on Tuesday, September 8, 2020 Alba Pubic School will begin operating with the schedule below.
Students who ride the bus will be allowed to come to school between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m. to make certain they will be able to arrive here safely and have breakfast each morning.
From 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. we will be working with small groups of students on enrichment activities. Those students not opting to come for breakfast may pick it up in the cafeteria before they leave that day. All other students arriving at school at 9:00 a.m. will report directly to class when the bell rings.
Our rationale for doing so lies across several areas and we believe will most effectively service our students at school and at home taking part in distance-learning. We will be reducing our daily schedule from the normal 8:00 a.m. to 3:05 p.m. time frame to a shortened day. The school day will look like this:
Alba Reduced Hours Schedule
7:30 - 8:00 Parent drop off
8:00 - 9:00 Teacher prep time
Students in the building will be doing enrichment activities.
9:00 - 9:55 1st hour
10:00 - 10:55 2nd hour
11:00 - 11:55 3rd hour
11:55 - 12:25 Lunch
(10:25 – 10:55 Grades K-1, 10:55-11:25 Grades 2-4, 11:25-11:55 Grades 5-7, 11:55-12:25 Grades 8-10, 12:25 CTC Students).
12:30 - 1:25 4th period
1:30 - 2:25 5th period - Students dismissed
2:25 - 3:05 Online instruction
As a team, the Alba Public School faculty and staff felt this program would have several advantages if we could work it out. First, this schedule will limit the amount of time our students are in masks while at school. The need for the masks in the building is important to us to help keep everyone safe, but we also recognize that students may not be comfortable, and find it difficult to wear them each day for extended periods. Secondly, the schedule allows our teacher’s time at the start and end of each school day to service those students who are at home working via distance-learning. The time slots at the start and the end of each day will exist as office hours for students to interact with the faculty and staff.
This would be inclusive of our students coming to school for in-person learning as each classroom teacher will be relying on technology in their daily teaching here at school as we wish to be prepared should another school closure occur during the 2020-2021 school year and for incidents like snow days.
These adjustments, we feel, allow us the greatest flexibility in servicing all of our students from Preschool (who will remain on the regular 8-2:25 schedule) through twelfth grade, at home and in the building, or in attending the Career Technical Center in Traverse City, which will continue its normal daily runs.
As always, should you have any questions regarding this alteration to our daily activities, please feel free to call me in the office at 231-584-2000 or on my cell at 269-838-0063.