August 06, 2020 | By Rocky Mountain Prep
With the announcement of a fully-remote first quarter of the school year, we know many families are reflecting on the past spring -- and what worked and what didn’t about having your child “in school” at home. We know from family feedback that students were really missing structured time with their peers and that they wanted more time learning directly with the teacher.
This summer, our team has been working tirelessly to plan for this next phase of remote learning, which we are calling “RMP at Home.”
We’re proud of the work we’ve done to prepare for RMP at Home this fall and wanted to share with families some of what will be the same as this spring -- and also highlight what will be different.
Families returning to RMP already know many of the incredible teachers on our team -- and all of our virtual classrooms will be led by RMP’s own team of exceptional educators who will deeply connect with scholars and support personalized growth.
Our scholars need extra love right now and we are prioritizing social-emotional learning alongside and through our academic program. For those familiar with our Compass Circles program from last year, we will continue to implement that program with students in grades 3-5. For younger scholars, they will build social-emotional skills through our morning meetings.
We pride ourselves on balancing a rigorous academic program with an environment of love, inclusivity, and respect in order to create the transformational learning experience that sets RMP apart.
Students will have at least 3 hours of live learning each day -- meaning more time interacting with their teachers and fellow students. Students will be grouped into either a morning schedule or an afternoon schedule. (See those sample schedules here.)
This school year we will be implementing a new comprehensive English Language Arts curriculum: EL Education K-5 Language Arts. We are incredibly excited about how this curriculum will support scholars’ learning through content-based literacy modules. Students will build content knowledge and vocabulary about a topic through a variety of engaging and culturally relevant texts, project-based learning, increased support for our scholars learning English, and more.
Teachers will create a project-based learning opportunity rooted in the interests and passions of our students to work on independently throughout the week.
In addition to their ABCs and 123s, students need an opportunity to participate in specials and learn a variety of subjects. RMP at Home will include time with our incredible group of specials teachers.
Our family-centered approach for the fall means that students will conduct all of their learning starting from one central website and use a limited number of learning platforms throughout the day. We believe that having stronger platforms that are accessible to all types of learners will streamline and strengthen student learning.
We will be asking for biweekly feedback through possip!, a 3-minute text survey shared with families. We will respond to this feedback by sharing praise, sharing reflections on how we can improve, and following up with families with individual concerns.
Want to know more? Join us for an upcoming coffee hour or town hall! Check your school’s calendar for upcoming coffee hours with the principal, or join us for our next network-wide town hall on August 20 at 1:00pm.
Looking for tech support? Check out a variety of videos on our site here.
I’m so excited to be at RMP because I know we make a commitment to the whole child. RMP lives its culture of Rigor and Love because it’s so clear that while academic success is key, our kids need more than just strong academic skills to live choice-filled, liberated lives.
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