Remote Learning Hub

This is completely dependent on permission from local health officials, particularly those at the Pasadena Department of Public Health. We have been preparing all summer to return to school in a hybrid model (combination of in-person and remote learning) and will be ready when we are officially approved to make this transition. Families will be given a minimum of two weeks’ notice.

This year, Lower School students are engaged in the remote learning day from 8:00 am - 2:45 pm, and Middle and Upper School students from 8:30 am - 3:10 pm. This time can include synchronous whole-class discussions and activities, reading, writing, homework problems, video watching, discussion board posts, and small collaborative group work, as well as synchronous whole-class activities. Our remote learning schedule provides transition time between each class, an hour-long break for lunch, and time away from the computer screen throughout the day. 

As always, time spent on independent student work and homework will vary for each student, and AP courses most likely will take more time. Students benefit from daily independent practice designed to reinforce learning, build academic confidence, stamina, and mastery. Rather than focus on a prescribed number of hours for homework outside of the remote learning day, it is the quality of asynchronous work that matters, not the quantity. 

For guidelines, students in grade 4 will be assigned approximately 10 minutes of homework per class each day. In grades 5 & 6, classes can have up to 60 minutes of homework per week.

Middle School students are generally assigned 90-120 minutes of homework daily. Time is more variable in the Upper School based on the needs of subjects, grade-level, and the nature of the course. 
 

Parents can reach teachers via email while we are working remotely and away from our phones. Teachers will do their best to respond to parent inquiries within 24 hours, Monday through Friday between 8 am and 3 pm. You can anticipate that weekend inquiries will receive a response on Monday before the end of the remote learning day.  

Students are being provided with supplies and other resource materials to facilitate remote learning. For the start of school, drive-through pick-ups are scheduled for August 20 for the Upper School and August 24 for the Lower & Middle School. Each grade level is assigned a specific time to drive by the State Street lot to pick-up their student supply kit. If you have not received information for your scheduled pick-up or are unable to make their scheduled time can contact the division office to arrange an alternative pick-up date and time.

Additional materials pick-up days will be scheduled as needed later in the school year. 

Dates for instrument pick-up for Lower and Middle School students will also be scheduled. Look for information from the division offices.

This year, the Lower and Middle School will centralize access to course materials and assignment collection through Microsoft OneNote Class Notebook. Lower School students will have a single electronic Class Notebook with tabs populated by teachers for each course. Middle School students will have a OneNote Class Notebook for each class. 

Lower and Middle School teachers will have at least of week of assignments posted at all times, although due dates will vary.

In the Upper School, content and assignment delivery and collection will continue through Finalsite. 

Ideally, effective remote learning includes both self-paced (asynchronous) and live (synchronous) learning activities. Multiple means of engagement enhance the learning experience and allow students and teachers to benefit from the different delivery formats. Synchronous activities are essential for promoting community and connection. 

At Westridge, all classes will begin with a synchronous opening (check-in or lesson), include periods of collaborative work and individual or asynchronous work, and a synchronous closing.

Despite security upgrades in Zoom, Teams remains a significantly more secure platform for students from both security and privacy perspectives. In addition, there are considerable educational benefits to using Teams, which integrates seamlessly with our learning platform and tools like Microsoft OneNote, used frequently in classes across divisions.

There is very good news for this year with Teams. With recent updates, the platform’s limitations on the number of students shown on screen have been addressed; now, 49 people can be seen on a single Teams screen. In addition, Teams’ new Together Mode allows users to share a background, making it feel like students are in the same virtual space. 

Because Teams is connected to Westridge student email accounts, parent meetings will take place on Zoom. 

Best practice is to keep a record of all class sessions and all one-on-one communications between teachers and students. This makes classes available to students who miss the live class and is for everyone’s protection in one-to-one communications.  

Performing arts teachers have worked creatively to adapt their curriculum for the online format, and all our performing arts offerings (music and theatre) will continue during remote learning. The theatre department has scheduled meetings for interested families to provide information for this year’s program. The music department, which will be employing new software this year to expand their online program, will provide information during Lower and Middle School orientations and Upper School back-to-school night.

This will vary between the classes and vary by age and class demand so information will come from teachers. This fall teachers are able to teach from their classrooms, so it is possible that they can run labs and stream them to students live so that students can engage. More detail will be provided from teachers during the Lower and Middle School parent orientation sessions on August 24 and at Upper School back-to-school meetings on September 9. 

Lower School students will have two live PE sessions each week. This is part of the regular 4th grade schedule. Fifth and sixth grade will have their regularly scheduled PE class plus one recess with PE faculty. Outside of their synchronous time, they will be assigned three days of asynchronous work. Like last year, this will include games, workouts, challenges, etc. – multiple fun ways to keep students moving at home and off their screens. 

Middle School students will have one live PE session each week. A new teacher will rotate to their group each week, so they are getting a mix of instruction and staying connected to all their teachers. Outside of their synchronous time, they will be assigned four days of asynchronous work. They will have an "assignment" from a different teacher each day. This will allow them to have more variety in what they are doing each week.

In the Upper School PE is integrated into the regular schedule and will include both synchronous and asynchronous activities. Fall and winter sports conditioning plans are in place now. 

Yes. Our AP classes are designed to prepare students for the standard AP exams, even during remote learning. For more information, visit our dedicated College Board page on Finalsite. 

For the 2020-2021 school year, Westridge will resume traditional grading policies for both remote and hybrid learning. Letter grades will be assigned for grades 7-12. Lower School students will continue to receive developmentally appropriate numeric scores to indicate progress toward mastery.  

Note that assessments do have to be different in remote learning. Best practice calls for smaller, more frequent, and more varied assessments to compensate for the difference in connection, limitations of testing while in remote learning, and variability of learning environments between students and even across hours and days of individual students. 

This year, remote learning expectations for attendance and being on time to class will be the same as our in-person expectations. Attendance will be taken at the beginning of all classes. If a student will be absent, please contact the attendance hotline at 626.799.1053, ext. 324.

Please let your division director and Director of Counseling and Student Support Lisa Carruthers know (lcarruthers@westridge.org). During remote learning, we will continue all the formal elements of our student support structure, including advisory, Big & Little Sister, and Peer-to-Peer.  

Yes. Middle and Upper School students will start each day in advisory. Lower School will begin each day with homeroom and we will resume our Lower School Council program.

This fall we have greatly expanded our co-curricular programs and activities to connect students with their peers. Clubs, affinity groups, student leadership meetings, as well as assemblies and grade level meetings, will take place on Wednesdays in the 2020-2021 school year. Club sign-ups will be communicated to students in the first weeks of school.

The Community Action Project requirement is still in place, but there will be greater latitude about what constitutes completing a project. More details will be communicated as soon as possible but we are working on encouraging and curating online service opportunities and developing some research options. What’s most important is that students demonstrate engagement in exploration of their interests in service and personal growth in thinking through addressing an issue if in this environment they cannot undertake traditional service activities.

No, campus is closed to all visitors except by appointment for materials/school supply pick-ups. Gatherings on campus of any kind are not permitted at this time.