Letter from Superintendent Sean McNeil and Carol Lang, BOE President

March 31, 2020

Dear Fair Haven,

We are in the third week of remote learning here in the Fair Haven school district. All of our students, from pre-k to 8th grade are receiving virtual instruction from their teachers. We are grateful to our parents, students, and teaching staff who are working hard every day to make the best of this “new normal.” This week we moved from reinforcing previously taught material to the introduction of new topics and skills. For those of you without kids in the district, you may be curious how it’s going. Here’s a quick look at a typical day:

Each day starts with an email at 9am that gives morning announcements from our building principals (Mrs. Schwartz at Sickles and Mrs. Romano at Knollwood). Included in the announcements are motivational quotes, discussion topics, directions for kids and parents, and even riddles! We have also been fortunate to have our daily pledge of allegiances and a read alouds performed by some of our Fair Haven Police Officers which are posted to our instagram and Facebook pages each morning. Follow us at @fairhavenknights on instagram or on our Facebook Page “Fair Haven Knights” to enjoy these with us each day!

For our Sickles friends in pre-k to 3rd, There are virtual read-alouds of stories, online freeshare Fridays, and Flipgrid writing celebrations. The students have opportunities to get help and feedback from their teachers throughout the day. Everyone is following established classroom routines, just a bit differently. Instead of a mini-lesson with a teacher in front of the room, the teachers are organizing small groups to teach lessons via digital tools such as Screencastify and then reinforcing skills through Zoom meetings. Our students are further supported by many of the online tools that we had already built into our curriculum such as iReady, online math tools, Epic literacy, and so many more!

If you have some extra time, check out some of the work that our Sickles “specials” teachers are doing. If you’re looking for an activity, try an art lesson with Dr. LaBrocca or a music lesson with Mr. Mottern. Need to brush up on your Spanish? Senora Ybarbo says “hola”! 

Come back for the next installment where we’ll fill you in on some of the remote learning strategies being used at Knollwood for our 4th-8th graders. 

Be well,

Sean McNeil, Superintendent & Carol Lang BOE President