LDI’s Plans for Campus Re-Opening to High School Students
Hello from LDI!
As we complete the first month of the school year, and move through the endless summer that is Arizona through most of September, we first share our sense of profound appreciation to our families, students and community for their ongoing commitments to achieve academic, social, and workplace success by sticking with LDI through this period of uncertainty that does not have a clear, foreseeable pathway to “normal life”.
Because of this support, LDI has been able to provide ongoing educational services, support our students, and continue operations as a viable program when far too many small and large special needs programs across the country are shutting down due to the financial and human costs of the COVID pandemic.
We continue to innovate by designing and delivering engaging, virtual education specifically created to address and improve the functional, performance gaps of life, work, and relationships that American teens and young adults face daily.
LDI’s student body is comprised of local, high school students who are receiving all instruction and academic support through our flipped classroom model and have one-on-one virtual support for academic needs, bi-weekly individual student advisement, and a Friday virtual community meeting.
LDI will be contacting parents shortly for 2 virtual meetings- one to set appointments with their child’s instructor/advisor to discuss how they are doing, what to catch up on and stay caught up, as well as an overall conversation about where the school is on reopening considerations, student successes, and parent concerns. We are still closely monitoring the COVID prevalence rates as well as the general health of staff while we are keeping physical contact with the outside world to a minimum.
We have a school break scheduled for the week of October 12-16 and are hopeful that community outbreak conditions as well as increased availability of screening/testing will show the way for a safe reopening or continuation of our present safety protocols.
Re-opening in mid-October, has been a stated goal of LDI since June, and it is our intention to welcome back students on October 17th, 2020. Our published plan for how we are managing COVID-19 will be implemented at a Phase 2 level- provided the virus danger continues to trend down and we can get everyone on board with maintaining in-house safety requirements.
The tentative schedule for student’s returning to campus on October 17th, will see day students attending classes during the mornings from 8:00- 12:00 Monday – Thursday. We will staff on what re-opening will look like this week, and I will be able to provide a more detailed explanation during the parent meeting once we determine the remaining details. We are still working out what we want to do on Fridays and will have that in place by no later than the morning of October 2nd.
Phase 2 gives students and parents options for either part-time on-campus or virtual instruction to choose for how they will engage. We have heard from some families that are leaning towards staying in a virtual setting, but most are hoping for a physical return to the school and we are finalizing a class day/week schedule to accommodate all students within the abilities of LDI to do so in a blended learning environment.
We understand all of these return plans could change within days or weeks after we relaunch, and that we are always going to be faced with the possibility of an outbreak- whether from students or staff, that could end up shutting down the in-person ability of LDI to provide instruction on campus, as that is part of the new reality. We would continue to offer the virtual option in any case to maintain instructional continuity and student engagement.
It has been a long year for students and their families enduring the confinement and isolation that has resulted from this terrible international tragedy, and we are hopeful that at least in terms of this part of life, we can reconnect our students with the school and world.
We will continue to provide updates and relevant news to our educational community in the coming weeks and look forward to staying in touch!
