Monday – Thursday, June 1-4, 2020 Planning: Process for the End of Year Supply Drop-off and Locker Clean-out
The link you will find in this opening sentence is very important for all high school families and pertains to the schedule and appointments for Monday – Thursday, June 1st – 4th. Please read the cover letter and all linked/attached pages carefully. End of Year Details & Schedule for June 1-4 HS Supply Drop-Off & Locker Clean-Out
Families should be prepared to return all Chromebook, textbooks, library books and any departmental issued resources, school issued Internet hot spots, school issued musical instruments and sheet music. When in doubt, please bring the item along and school personnel will assess the matter on the day of your appointment.
As you can imagine, scheduling 900 students for this activity during four days is complex. Thus, altering the schedule of appointments would be quite disruptive to the process. If a family has special circumstances that conflict with their appointed time, please contact Mrs. Amerling via email at bamerling@smsacademy.org.
Class of 2020: Final Celebrations
As you know, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools are prohibited from scheduling or implementing many of the gatherings that are traditional to graduation season. As such, instead of Baccalaureate Mass and Graduation originally scheduled for June 7th, SMSA has needed to develop alternative plans for celebrating with the Class of 2020 and their families.
I am grateful to all seniors and their parents for their patient support, goodwill and flexibility during this very difficult and untimely circumstance. Naturally, it is disappointing for all parties that adjusted celebrations are necessary. That said, some beautiful plans have emerged for our dear seniors! For a clear and complete picture of the SMSA plans for celebrating the Class of 2020, please click Class of 2020 Special Days and Celebrations – May and June 2020 for a detailed summary. We are all in this together!
Final Academic Obligations
All student work for Quarter 4 and Semester II are expected to be completed by Friday, May 29, 2020. Recognizing the added challenges of the virtual learning term, all late work for Quarter 4 may be submitted to teachers for full credit until Friday, June 5, 2020.
Skyward Access
From Monday, June 1st at 7:00 a.m. – Tuesday, June 9th at 7:00 a.m., parents and students will not have access to Skyward gradebooks. During this time, grades will be submitted, processed and verified by SMSA faculty and staff. Families will have access to grade reports again on Skyward on Tuesday, June 9th at 7:00 a.m.
Student Schedules for 2020-21
On Friday, May 29th, parents and students will have access to Skyward to review course schedules for the 2020-21 school year! These preliminary schedules are directly informed by the course selections originally submitted by students in January and February.
In the past, preliminary schedules were not made available for review until August. Our goal has been to release schedules to students and parents by June 1, and so we are pleased to fulfill this goal! Many thanks to Mr. Jacob Norlander, our Master Scheduler, and to our Counseling Office for working diligently to guide students in their choices, honor student interests, build the Master Schedule and mitigate schedule conflicts. While some schedule conflicts are still being addressed, the great majority of high school schedules are set for next year! Students may contact Mr. Mahaffey via tmahaffey@smsacademy.org prior to Friday, June 5th to discuss their 2020-21 schedule.
As we shared in January, the course selection process is key to building a master schedule for SMSA and to staffing decisions. Because of potential disruption to other students and to personnel, schedule changes are thus discouraged unless deemed essential to a student’s academic well being.
In August, students will have a short period of time to make schedule adjustments if necessary. Please note that beginning in 2020-21 any schedule change not initiated by SMSA will require payment of a nominal fee. More detailed information around this process will be shared with parents in the return to school summer packet mailing.