News You Choose - Wednesday, April 15, 2020 - Principal's Message

Good Evening West Potomac Wolverines!

Yesterday, it was so wonderful to reconnect with our students.  We really miss them and look forward to getting back to virtual learning. 

While the vast majority of classes yesterday were successful, there were students and others throughout FCPS who displayed inappropriate offensive behaviors. I would like to personally apologize for the behavior that some students and teachers experienced yesterday during their class time. In order to support students learning synchronously in a safe environment, FCPS added enhanced security to our Blackboard Collaborate platform to limit participation to only the students in a given class.  Students must log in under their SIS class list name to access the session.  As a result, teachers at West Potomac attended an all staff meeting at 9:30 am to hear an overview of the enhancements and the steps needed to be completed today to prepare for tomorrow.  Our technology specialist provided several training sessions throughout the day for teachers to learn the new enhancement and to create their individual Blackboard Collaborate sessions.  Also, teachers were available via email for any office hour questions. 

I am so proud of the West Potomac faculty and staff. They worked hard all day today to hurry and get ready for our kids. We were ready for tomorrow so it is very disappointing for us not to move forward at this time. Throughout the day, teachers messaged to students that we would move forward with Blackboard, but they also messaged a contingency plan as I was concerned there may be lingering problems with blackboard.

West Potomac’s  contingency plan for tomorrow is google classroom.This will not be a virtual live learning experience, but teachers are prepared to offer learning activities via google classroom.  Students should log in to google classroom during the scheduled class time following the DLP Blue (2,4,6,8) day schedule.  Teachers will also be available to communicate via emails.

This plan is specific to West Potomac so you may not hear of this at other schools. 

I appreciate your continued patience, understanding and support.

Ms. Millard