Dear Penn Charter Families,
Spring break for many of us is usually a time for recreation, family vacations and respite before the final run to celebratory school activities, which include culminating school projects, graduation and transitions to next year's grade, or college or other stages in life. Like you, this spring break has been different for my own children and all of our Penn Charter students and their families, and we don't quite know what the run of activities to the end of the school year may look like. This, indeed, is unsettling for all of us.
Today, I write to you primarily to share Penn Charter's Family Guide to Distance Learning 1.0. I commend this guide to you and your children and ask that you review the appropriate information for the division(s) in which your children are enrolled. As the name implies, our plan will evolve based on our experience as well as feedback from students and parents.
Please know that most of our faculty and administrators have worked tirelessly, before we went on break and each day of spring break, to prepare this guide and the school lessons that were mailed yesterday to Lower School families and that will be taught using technology for our Middle and Upper School students. Like our parents, our faculty have tended to their own children while doing their jobs from home.
I don't know about you, but each day of this past week has required the development of my skill sets as a teacher, administrator and parent. Specifically, I have had to learn new technology, set a different schedule for work, and amplify my own dose of patience with my family, colleagues from school, and, yes, even myself.
It is my hope that as we enter into these next weeks of distance learning, enhanced patience will be the skill that we hone. Patience with our children, students, teachers, parents and, yes, even ourselves. There will be technology that doesn't work, lessons that will need adjusting, and things that go wrong. Patience and flexibility will help us overcome anything that goes amiss.
Yet, I know that there will be great triumphs, too. New leadings and new learnings and new ways to create community.
During the toughest of times, I often say to friends and colleagues, "Faith and Fortitude." It is my belief that these two attributes can carry us through.
For the work of school, I commend you to Penn Charter's Family Guide to Distance Learning 1.0, and for the work of life, I offer my central belief, "Faith and Fortitude."
Sincerely,
Darryl
Darryl J. Ford
Head of School