Los Alamos Reporter

Los High School To Enter Temporary Remote Learning Thursday For 10 Calendar Days As Positive Cases Reach 5%

BY CARTER PAYNE
Principal
Los Alamos High School

I’m writing to report that LAHS/TFA has reached a point where 5% of our school population (students & staff) have tested positive for COVID within the past 14 days.  (Click here to see a chart of the 14 day case count).  Under the current NMPED guidance,  a school must enter “Temporary Remote Learning”  for  10 CALENDAR days when the positivity rate reaches 5%.  This rule applies on a school-by-school basis, and the threshold has been reached only at LAHS/TFA at this time.  All other schools in the district will continue in-person learning.

LAHS/TFA will enter Temporary Remote Learning on Thursday, January 13, 2022 beginning at 7:50am, extending through Saturday, January 22, 2022.  All in person classes, meetings, activities, practices, games, and other high school events must be held remotely, be rescheduled, or be cancelled during this window.

Our aim at LAHS/TFA has been to communicate frequently and clearly about any COVID cases, and many of you have been following the daily totals.  Through daily emails and frequent announcements, we have given our school community a heads-up that this could be on the horizon.  Based on experience from last school year, many of our staff continue to use Google Classroom or Canvas as an integral part of their classrooms and are ready to quickly transition to using these as their primary teaching platform.

Here’s a summary of the logistics for this transition:

LAHS/TFA will continue to use our normal daily A/B calendar and our normal bell schedule with normal start and end times for class, just as we did on our “Dry Run” day during the PSAT on October 13.  The “10 CALENDAR days” would mean that 3 A day classes and 3 B day classes would be done in remote learning before we would return to in-person learning. 

Temporary remote learning summary:

  • Classes follow the regular LAHS/TFA Bell Schedule (10 minute “passing periods” between classes, 90 minute block periods, start and end times remain the same)
  • Teachers will plan lessons that use the first 30-45 minutes of the class period for direct instruction, group instruction, etc.  The remainder of the period can be used as small group meetings, independent learning / student work time, one-on-one meetings with teachers, etc.
  • All teachers will take attendance in PowerSchool for each class period. 

This will be a temporary foray into remote learning, and keeping the same schedule helps make sure that everyone’s lives (students, staff, etc.) continue functioning on a schedule that will allow quick and seamless transition back to in-person learning.  With remote learning happening on a school-by-school basis, it also allows the staff we share with other sites to adhere to the same bell schedule so they can still meet their responsibilities at those sites.

Some things for students and parents to think about:

  • Do you know how to log in to each of your teachers’ Google Classrooms (or CANVAS classrooms)?  Email your teacher if you don’t.
  • Do you have all of the items you need from your locker, your teachers’ classrooms, the library, the textbook center, etc?  If not, please gather these items TODAY before you leave.
  • If you are not at school today, or are not able to collect your items today, please call our front office at 505-663-2510 beginning tomorrow morning (THURSDAY 1/14/2022)  to make arrangements.

We will hold an online Parent/Student question and answer session TONIGHT at 5 PM.  Look for an email with a link so you can join.  If you would like to join, please use your STUDENT chromebook to log into the event If at all possible.