1 July 2020
Dear Heritage Families,
I would like to update you on our plans to reopen. Like you, I’m closely watching the data regarding COVID as it relates to our schools and families.
To begin with, please know that Heritage families are in the thoughts and prayers of the Taylor family every day. We hope each of you are healthy and safe.
Arizona has seen an increase in COVID-19 cases. Directives on things like large gatherings, start dates, and masks have been coming very quickly.
As I wrote a few days ago, our plans are to safely reopen to the fullest extent possible allowed by law. On Monday, 29 June 2020, Governor Ducey issued another executive order which delays in-person classes until 17 August 2020.
At the same press conference, the Governor said that this reopening date was “aspirational” which means we will continue to have uncertainty in returning. It’s likely that this date is pushed back even further. Delaying school any longer is not in the best interest of our scholars and families.
Therefore, we are planning to resume school on the same date that we previously published for each school. (See your local school website for the calendar for the exact start date.) Classes will be provided online until we are allowed to resume in person on campus. We don’t know the exact date of when in-classroom learning will begin and we don’t want to further delay education. As a result, scholars will need access to computers and the Internet to facilitate Google Classroom.
To help us plan for reopening for in-person classes, we need to know who would like to continue online learning instead of classroom learning after the State has approved a return campus. We will need a response from each family by 10 July 2020. This is not an interest list, it is a commitment to proceed online after we are permitted to return to campus.
Scholars who are listed will be required to complete the entire semester online through Google Classroom and may return to campus in the Spring semester, should we be allowed back on campus. If you would like to continue online learning for the entire fall semester, please submit your information at this FORM HERE.
The form will outline additional details related to this type of learning. For example, there will be a selection of electives, but they may be limited and different from what we are able to offer on campus. Also notable is that our dual enrollment partners will support what we are doing both online and on campus.
Google Classroom will again be our distance learning platform. We received feedback from many of you on what we did well and how we can improve and have considered your feedback in our plans. Thank you. We will be keeping the good and improving in areas we were not as strong. Additional training in online instruction will be given to our faculty to be more effective. At the same time, we would like to be clear on the expectations for online learning. Here is a document that outlines what success looks like in an online classroom.
As always, thank you for being part of the Heritage family.
Sincerely,
Jared Taylor
Chairman, Governing Board
Heritage Academy Schools
(480) 969-5641
