We have developed our operational plan to safely provide a healthy school and work environment for your review and use, as we move forward to starting exclusively online programming on August 10 for our high school students and August 17 for our adult program students.
For both groups of students, LDI will initially offer only an online virtual program, until the state achieves a reduced level of infections falling below the rate the CDC and other health care experts recommend constitutes a reasonable risk environment. As all of us know, this is not the case in Arizona, which as I write this to you, continues to have one of the highest rates of the virus in the country.
LDI will never take a chance on your children and those who interact with them and our staff. We believe in doing what matters most in protecting our precious loved ones and can work through the inconveniences it causes continuing building a future worth living in. As part of this plan, all other considerations have been viewed as secondary concerns, and as the situation continues to evolve, we will follow the guidelines of the plan towards normal business operations and community engagement.
We have been busy preparing the campus for the in-person return of students and visitors, and I have attached a photo of our new classroom. As you can see, there will be plenty of room to accommodate students safely when we can resume face to face classes, and we will be able to offer both in-person and virtual classes to accommodate students/families particular desire for a safe learning setting.
We are also pleased to share some outcome information from students and the HR professionals who conducted the virtual job interviews from the recent Emerging Leaders Virtual Summer Academy. All too often, the voice of the student is excluded from offering feedback on what worked and could have worked better. The skill of self-reflection and offering a clear opinion is a critical part of life in determining what one wants and how to let others know about it. Our students did a great job of that, and their insights and opinions will be used to refine our approach and ways of delivering content/measuring results.
Veronica did a wonderful job of securing the involvement of her HR professional colleagues to provide an outsider’s view of how the students prepared and presented themselves as prospective candidates for employment. Megan and Josh worked tirelessly preparing our students for this live interview, and it is worth noting that with the exception of a few students, the majority had never worked, been interviewed, knew how to prepare, how to research a company, and put it all together in a successful job search. Across the board, our employers agreed that with few exceptions in a couple of areas (e.g. organization, follow up questions), our students were viewed as qualified and capable prospects for employment!
