Welcome to week 2 of spring. Last week, for a bit of fun, I shared a photo of my new COVID-19 basement office. This week, Carolyn shared how she's been adjusting-- in a converted playhouse with her new office mate, Gabbana.
Carolyn's space is much cheerier than mine! If you'd like to share your photos of how you've adjusted, feel free to send one along. I have a few now and I'll be sharing them every week.
Goal for Week 2: Ask your students to email Gracie
Last week, my goal for you was simply to get in touch with your students and let them know how spring was going to work. This week, we want to start processing tuition waivers. To do that, we need every student to email Gracie Nguyen to request a waiver. Sometime this week, please ask your students to:
- Email Gracie Nguyen at gracie.nguyen@seattlecolleges.edu.
- Include their name, student ID, and teacher's name.
- Request the waiver with a simple statement such as "Please waive my spring 2020 tuition, as I cannot pay at this time."
That's all. The state audit rules do not require any other documentation, but we are required to receive a request from each student (which we keep on file and which get audited roughly every 4 years). We will begin processing waivers later this week. Our goal is to get these done before students receive "past due" statements in the mail.
Question for Week 2: Who have you not reached?
I also want to ask every faculty to
- Make a copy of your roster from your IBC,
- Indicate who you have not been able to contact, and
- Email it to Amber Correa at amber.correa@seattlecolleges.edu by Wednesday.
Toward the end of the week, we will take up a deliberate initiative to reach out to students who we have not been able to reach. Our goal is to see if we can help these students access technology or trouble-shoot any issues, and see if we can help them get connected to your class. Which brings me to...
Don't drop students (yet)
The college sent all faculty the "administrative drop" form with a request to process drops ASAP. Please ignore that. We will be making the above efforts to contact students before we drop them. If you have heard from a student who has affirmatively requested to not take classes, let the office know. We will drop those students.
EI Update
ESL EIs will resume this week with a goal of placing students into under-enrolled ESL classes by the end of the week. So please be ready to accept new students into your class, but know that these students will have just completed Zoom/remote EIs so they will likely have some comfort with remote learning.
After this week, Arleen will start her Gateway section, so we will continue to accept new students but they will be placed into the Gateway.
Optional research study
Troy Nickels is a doctoral student at Walden University conducting a study titled "Teacher Perceptions of Leadership Styles and the Relationship to Job Satisfaction in Adult Basic Education Settings.” He would like to survey faculty. As someone who still remembers my own dissertation work, I want to encourage you to participate.
To participate, click on the link provided below, which will take you to an informed consent letter, followed by two brief questionnaires designed to assess leadership styles and job satisfaction. It is Troy's hope to better understand how Adult Education teacher job satisfaction is related to leadership style, given that the only information available is not focused on adult educators.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9MQX6M9
You can email Troy at troy.nickel@waldenu.edu if you have questions.
Packet update
Packets hit the mail last week, and one faculty member already received their copy in the mail, so they should reach students soon if they haven't already. Thanks to Zahra who has agreed to help me with packets as part of her release time. I certainly under-estimated how much time packets would take, so I'm very grateful for Zahra's contribution.
As a reminder, you can submit packet materials here. Zahra will prepare your materials for the copy center and serve as the division's point person. A packet will be mailed to faculty who provide their address, so you know roughly when it should arrive in students' hands. Undeliverable packets will be returned to the campus mail room, who will coordinate with the BTS admin team to try to fix any incorrect addresses.
Zoom/Synchronous Learning update
You have been invited to an optional meeting to discuss Zoom/synchronous learning on Thursday at 2 pm. The link to the meeting is:
https://zoom.us/j/98183462236?pwd=Y0RqOVBYQjF6WDlLVEFhZTNEMmtRQT09
In the first synchronous learning meeting, I shared the expectation that meetings will be recorded, captioned, and posted for students to view later. I also committed to providing you more info on how to do that work. After meeting with the TLC last week, I realized that the guidance I need to provide isn't something that I can easily put in an email, so I need to call another meeting. We will discuss how to:
- Create captions
- Protect student privacy during recording sessions
- Decide what needs to be recorded (and what doesn't)
- Protect student privacy after recordings are posted
ESL Conversation Practice via Zoom
The Seattle Public Library in partnership with Literacy Source is offering English conversation circles with language learners and native speakers. All levels are welcome. The circles use a secure Zoom classroom, and students can register at:
The circles take place from April 20 through June 20 with times on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Thanks to Akemi for sharing.
Taken on Expenses Due to COVID-19?
Have you had to pay for things out-of-pocket in order to move to remote learning? Let me know. I have approved some mailing expenses for a few faculty prior to us making arrangements with the copy center. There are some other, small expenses I have agreed to cover.
If you have taken on some expenses related to this, let me know. I cannot promise that I will approve reimbursements after-the-fact, but I'm happy to consider it.
Stay safe!
That's it for this week. While nothing is official for BTS, the college has announced that all transfer classes will remain online/remote-learning for summer. I expect that will be true for us as well. In the meantime, keep doing great things this spring!
John