April 9, 2020
Updates for El Dorado High School
Since the news broke that the Governor of Arkansas has closed schools to on-site instruction for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year, there have been many decisions to be made and revised. Some issues have not been decided at this time. Some information listed below has already been shared, and some is new information. The following information is broken down by seniors and 9th-11th grade.
Seniors
All seniors on track for graduation at semester and who passed all required graduation courses 3rd nine weeks, have completed the requirements for graduation.
Grades for 3rd nine weeks will be copied to 4th nine weeks and averaged to determine 2nd semester grade. Any senior desiring an opportunity to improve his/her 3rd nine weeks grade must contact the teacher of each specific subject and a plan will be developed. That request must be made to the teacher by April 10. Essentially, unless a senior requests an opportunity to improve the 3rd nine weeks grade, whatever grade he/she had in any particular course will be his/her 2nd semester grade.
Class rank was frozen as it stood at the end of the 1st semester.
Teachers and/or office staff will begin notifying seniors of any fines. Those must be resolved. Information about an online payment process will be given shortly.
The decision to hold or cancel graduation and prom will be determined at a later date and will be determined by the Health Department's guidelines on the size of gatherings. We will not give up on having them until the absolute last minute possible.
We will keep senior school email accounts open until we have a graduation or until we set a certain cut-off date. Once school emails are closed, students are not able to access any information on the account. It would be a good use of senior’s time to go through their emails and send any important or useful information to a personal email account. Any college or scholarship information should certainly be saved to a personal email.
9th -11th Grade
Teachers will continue to provide Alternative Methods of Instruction (AMI) and assignments through Google classroom, Google Hangout Meets, and printed materials. The printed materials will be available weekly and will be located in file cabinets on the “front porch” of the school. Students should go to the school after 12:00 noon each Monday to gather their AMI packets for the week. There is a place to return completed AMI packets. (The AMI materials for the week of April 14-17 will be ready earlier than normal due to the long holiday weekend and will be in the filing cabinets by the morning of Friday, the 10th.)
Because Friday, April 10 and Monday, April 13 were scheduled holidays on our school calendar, there will be no AMI work for those days.
AMI Due Dates: Completed work is due on the Friday following the week of the assignment. For example, work assigned for this current week, April 6-9, will be due by midnight, Friday, April 17.
How to return printed AMI work: We would prefer that you return your printed work digitally. Students can take a picture of each page and email it to their teachers. They can also upload it into Google Classroom. If internet access or data limits are an issue, students can access the school’s wifi from our parking lot. Returning completed work digitally is a safer process for many reasons, but primarily because it would be returned directly to the teachers. No middle man. If students absolutely must return packets physically, there is a box on the front porch of the school for that.
There will be NO exams. Semester grades will be determined by averaging 3rd and 4th nine weeks grades.
High school students must complete this work to complete the courses and receive high school credit. NOT turning in work will most likely result in failure. Students who fail required classes for graduation will be placed in credit recovery, either in summer school or during the school year. Students must pay attention to prerequisite course requirements. For example, students must successfully complete Algebra I before taking Geometry and Physical Science before taking Biology. Failing one, or both, courses for 9th graders would mean that the students would begin the next year already off track for graduation as those courses are all graduation requirements.
Students who were scheduled into credit recovery classes during 3rd nine weeks can contact their counselor or Mrs. Jacobson for instructions on how to continue that from home.
CATS Conferences
CATS Conferences every year are a scheduled time for each student, his/her parents, and a teacher to have a face-to-face planning meeting. They look at the student's grades, scores, and future plans to create the next year’s schedule based on the most appropriate classes to meet the student's needs. Counselors and other support staff are there to provide any guidance needed. This means that every student’s registration form for the next year is completed at this time. The courses requested are tallied and that is what the principal uses to develop the next year’s master schedule. We do need to get this done as soon as we can. Obviously, we will not be able to conduct those meetings in person. At this time, we are working through different ideas on how to conduct this meeting digitally while making sure students and parents get the guidance needed to make the best choices for class requests for the 2020-2021 school year. As soon as we have settled on a plan, we will make those announcements.
General Information
No one is scheduled to physically be on duty at school. The secretaries are answering the phones from home between the hours of 8:00 and 3:00 during the normal school week. They will take messages and get them to the appropriate person. The school phone number is 870-864-5100. (If there is a scheduled holiday like this upcoming Good Friday and the following Monday, they will not answer phones that day.)
The best way to get in contact with teachers is directly through email. All students should have their teachers' emails.
Grades are always available to students and parents through their HAC account. If you have lost your password, contact your counselor. If you cannot get into HAC and would like an emailed 3rd nine weeks report card, please contact your counselor.
Returning school materials like books, instruments, uniforms (for example-ROTC and orchestra) will be scheduled. The dates and times will be announced in the next couple of weeks. We will schedule more than one date for this process.