Beacon's Teachers Spent Professional Learning Day Creating At-Home Learning Tools For 2-Week School Closure

Students in the Beacon City School District were off for a scheduled Professional Learning Day for teachers. Consider it a practice day for the anticipated two-week school closure due to the Dutchess County State Of Emergency declared on March 13, 2020, in an effort to reduce the coronavirus/COVID-19 spread. For a district that had virtually no snow days (fact-checking this… can’t recall if there was one snow day, or just a delay), parents aren’t getting off that easy. Kids, however, are ecstatic. At least in this closure, there is no snow to shovel, which is what usually happens with snow days. Unless we get a blizzard too. And if that happens, well, we’ll deal with it.

Beacon’s Superintendent Matt Landahl announced that teachers had been preparing for a two-week closure, and took the Professional Learning Day to create the materials that kids can use to log into classes from home. According to the announcement, elementary school students will be given access to Chromebook laptops at home.

School principals will reach out to parents on Monday, using the school messenger by Monday afternoon. Parents and students also have access to online and app-based communication tools with teachers that they have already been using.

Superintendent Matt Landahl ended his update with a cheer: “We will keep updating you with information next week and hang in there!”