Posted Mar 17, 2021
Dear EASTERN Family,
We are very pleased to inform you that we will be offering four days of in-person instruction for all our students starting April 6th. Having our students in our classrooms for the remainder of the school year allows us to focus on teaching and assessing critical hands-on skills and providing opportunities for our students to acquire licenses and certifications that require in-person learning. We will also be making a concerted effort to help transition our students into the next steps of their career paths. This includes assisting with job placement for students who wish to enter directly into their career field. It also includes assisting students continuing to post-secondary education navigate and take advantage of any articulation agreements we have.
We are offering families the choice between in-person instruction, four days per week, with Wednesday being a virtual day or participating in 100% virtual option. We respect a family’s right to choose what they feel is best for their child during these difficult times and understand that some families may be uncomfortable with their child returning to school. We want you to be aware of the following before committing to any decision:
- Our teachers will be in their classroom/lab area working with our students who are in person assisting them with hands-on skill development. With most of our students coming back, our teachers need to focus on occupational safety and health safety and skill development of our students who are in person. Our teachers creatively “front-loaded” the theory part of the curriculum, but now must focus on critical hands-on skills so our students are prepared to continue in their career field. Students who continue in a virtual model will be unable to gain these hands-on skills, will not be able to obtain certifications that are performance-based, and will be unable to complete all the tasks in our curriculum.
- Students who choose to continue virtually will be in an asynchronous environment, meaning assignments will be posted for them to complete. Learning will be much more independent than it has been. Students will still get exposure to their career field but will be missing the critical hands-on component of our programs.
- On Wednesdays, synchronous (live) instruction will be offered to the AM class from 7:45-8:30 and the PM class from 12:00-12:45. This is the only opportunity our teachers will have to provide whole-group instruction.
If you completed the survey already and wish to change your child’s instructional model, please email attendance@eastech.org. If you have not completed the survey, our staff has been and will continue to reach out to you. We need to send this information back to our districts so they can plan for transportation.