The Key School
In a typical eight-hour school day, students have math, science, social studies, electives, P.E. There’s a lunch break, snack breaks, “brain breaks.” Students ask questions; teachers answer them.
This year, however, things won't be so straightforward, as schools around the country work to figure out what a normal day will look like amid a global pandemic.
A diversion from the norm presents even more challenges for students with learning differences like dyslexia or ADHD.
Helping those students is the mission of The Key School, part of the Key Center for Learning Differences. The school is returning to in-person classes Sept. 8 but also giving students the option to distance learn in the month of September.
Instruction will be a combination of both synchronous and asynchronous learning — "synchronous," meaning students and teachers can communicate with each other in real time.
Students who opt to learn from home will keep up with lessons through Google Classroom and also receive live instruction from their teacher during designated office hours and on Fridays.
Key School director Leslie Vasquez says this method allows for flexibility, and instructors can make accommodations or modify the curriculum to cater to students. Also, there is a low student-teacher ratio, which curriculum director Mellie Joiner says helps limit distractions.
The Key School is taking several steps to help keep students focused, like showing families how to set up a good study space and how to minimize distractions, providing digital tools to supplement learning and, in class, incorporating a variety of activities and tasks to make sessions more digestible.
Vasquez says teachers build relationships with students and have access to their learning profiles, which they use to direct their instruction.
After reflecting on the distance learning that took place last spring, Vasquez says staff have been able to strengthen and develop course instruction and offerings for this fall.
There are “lots of little tidbits and tricks, if you will, that we’ve got in our hat,” she says.
Samantha Calimbahin contributed to this report.
