| Dear Neighbor,
You may have already received the letter below from JCPS if you have school-aged children at home, but it struck us as an important message that we should all read to better understand how learning is continuing while our kids are all staying safe at home and reducing personal interactions.
Have a safe week,
 Brent T. Ackerson
26th District Councilman
April 5, 2020
Dear JCPS Families,
We hope you and your child are ready for school to resume, even if that “school” isn’t a building with a cafeteria and lockers but is instead in your home. Non-Traditional Instruction (NTI) begins Tuesday for all JCPS students. This is required coursework that children will do at home. Teachers and administrators have been conducting on-line meetings, preparing lesson plans, and getting familiar with the NTI website as well as the hard copies of schoolwork. As we launch NTI this week, here are some things you need to know:
- Teachers will be reaching out to students this week, explaining what they expect from them during NTI. If your child hasn’t heard from a teacher or someone at their school by the end of the week, please contact the school or teacher. When you call the school you may hear the after-hours recording on the voicemail. Just leave a message and someone from the school will call you back.
- For those of you with computers at home, here is the JCPS’ NTI website: https://sites.google.com/jefferson.kyschools.us/jcps-nti/home. There is a lot of information on this page about navigating the web page and helping your child. From this page, click on Required NTI Coursework to get to the school work specific to your child’s school and grade. This work can be found at the School NTI Portals link.
- Hard copies of Choice Boards are still available this week at more than 60 Emergency Food sites across Louisville. These are academic exercises that students can do at home. Beginning April 13th, packets containing hard copies of grade-level specific course work will be available at the food sites. Teachers will communicate with students about doing work with the hard copies or online. The food sites are open Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.
- The time period for families in the Free and Reduced Lunch program or the Exceptional Child Education (ECE) program to request a Chromebook from JCPS has ended. Emails have been sent to families who have been approved to receive a Chromebook and mailing of the computers has begun.
- JCPS plans to supply 6,000 Wi-Fi hot spots to ECE families who do not currently have internet access. This will allow children with special needs to continue therapy sessions and receive individualized instruction via the internet. These families will be receiving instructions on how to request a hot spot.
- The staff at many of our schools have been doing car parades through neighborhoods and finding other unique ways to show our students and families how much we miss them. Here’s a fun video from Barret Middle School’s staff that’s an example of JCPS employees trying to engage with students in this difficult time: https://youtu.be/Qt-ikKea4VQ.
- We want to share your student’s videos and photos as well. Use the hashtag #WeAreJCPSAtHome and @JCPSKY if you post something on social media.
We know teachers, administrators, families and students will face some challenges as we implement NTI for close to 100,000 students. Other large, urban school districts have concluded that it’s too difficult. But we believe it’s the right thing to do - to do our best to keep kids progressing and learning - at a most unusual time in our history.
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