Going Back to School Online

Back to School night naturally took on a whole new look recently as John Muir School “opened” its fall 2020 school year.

According to Muir Principal Dr. Lawton Gray, teachers “did a great job” of recording online video messages for families, so that families could “meet” teachers and learn more about school schedules and programs in general.

The online Back to School night is just one element of the PUSD virtual curriculum , according to Dr. Gray, who said that while Back To School Night is not personalized, he will be arranging a monthly “Coffee with the Principal,” to allow for school families to ask questions, and he also can get a better sense of the community and “campus” mood.

The Back to School event, said Gray, brought out a lot of positive responses from parents, who received information about whats 39’s currently going on with school, how to log in to the online lessons, and having a host of questions answered.

“It’s also about also being honest about some of the challenges that we face with going online,” Gray added, candidly, “and providing support for families to help them get access to the curriculum, which was really good. A number of them thought it was very lively.”

The event also featured a raffle for parents, along with a number of alumni from Muir who were now actually staff members at the school.

“We’ve been very engaged for the parents to get involved with something,” Gray added. “Even if, even though it’s online, we try to make it active, and engaging as if we were in person, but we just did online. So they appreciated the engagement and having something fun online for the parents.”

Said Gray, “I know one of the biggest questions is, ‘When are we going to come back on campus?,’ and we don’t know the answer to that yet, but we are still able to give them information and access to the technology and the curriculum.

Gray also explained that PUSD utilizes an online 24/7 tutoring technology called Paper, for students in grades six through 12.

“We want to make sure we get all this information out to our families, so they can be supported as much as possible,” he said.

“Parents and families can still view the pre-recorded portion of virtual Back to School Night here: https://www.smore.com/723gc-john-muir-high-school?fbclid=IwAR26d8GGWVZfFKFIcNPj4f_sN0WkNwq1B_kyFGkeIMYGKCFLFj1q7u8tIYQ”