First Month of School Complete! Distance Learning Plan 2.0

“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins, not through strength but by perseverance.” (H. Jackson Brown)

RE: First Month of School Complete. Distance Learning Plan Updated!!

ISO Community, Prospective Parents, Partners and Friends,
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It is hard to believe that tomorrow will mark the one-month physical return to our school campus. We have indeed had a great start, and continue to have great expectations.

We know that the two most important ingredients in the educational process are quality communication, alongside, positive proactive parent involvement.

During this first month back at school, we have seen those two items firmly in place and helping the American International School of Ouagadougou go from Good to Great!!

To that end, we just have a few points, along with our revised Distance Learning Plan, which is a new requirement for the Re-Accreditation External Review of our school by the Middle States Association. The virtual site visit will take place next month, on October 19th – 21st.

Quick Notes:

• The Board of Trustees has frozen tuition; it will remain unchanged for the 2020 – 2021 School Year. The goal is to both provide the school with financial stability, and to recognize our stakeholders’ unwavering support. Please note that all pending invoices not paid by Friday, September 18th, will incur a 2.5% late fee. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our business office at i.nikiema@iso.bf.
• During the first month of school, our faculty assembled a task force to help us update and modernize our distance learning plan, which took into account the MAP scores. The results of the MAP testing, which measured your students’ levels/growth, were posted on their PlusPortals’ account yesterday. This information was then used by our team to help us update our Distance Learning Program. The last update, version 2.0, was completed last week. Our goal is that this is only used for reference, and for our Middle States Association Virtual Team Visit. However, in order for us to achieve that goal, we must keep working together to mitigate the present global health risks, with continued use of face coverings, hand washing, temperature checks, along with our new routines and procedures for student arrival/dismissal and lunch.

With our curriculum framework firmly in place for our MSA Re-Accreditation visit next month, our faculty and staff were able to quickly adjust to face-to-face learning in less than one month’s time, while taking proactive measures to ensure our students’ health and safety.

I have learned, from prior experiences in other Director roles, that although we know that nothing will be “easy”, we also know that administrators, teachers, and parents will continue to work together in order to get students at every level of learning back on track!

-Jeff