May 16, 2020
Dear Parents,
I hope this letter finds you and your family well, even as we continue to adjust and adapt to new and various challenges brought by the pandemic. Our teachers and staff all look forward to meeting our students soon in our virtual classes. With the recent guidelines for Modified ECQ and Modified GCQ, we will still start school year 2020-2021 through the Distance Learning Program (DLP) – we will not conduct physical classes yet.
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Our Distance Learning Program plans and guidelines have been submitted to the Division Office of the Department of Education for review last May 5, 2020. On the same day, we were informed that we are the first school in the city to submit a concrete DLP plan and that it had passed the initial review. It was then forwarded to the Regional Office X (DepEd-ROX) for confirmation. We were then told to wait for the Learning Continuity Plan (LCP) that the Department of Education was due to release soon.
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On May 13, 2020, I was invited to the DepEd-ROX to meet the Regional Director to discuss our proposed DLP. In that meeting, we were given the reference DepEd memo for the Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELC – a relevant component of the LCP). The MELC defines for schools the ‘must-cover’ learning content, reduced to the essential minimum. With the reduced content, both teachers and students are allowed flexibility to meet the challenges and adjustments relating to remote learning and without the pressure of having to cover too many content. This proved significant in further guiding us with our DLP.
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We always aim to keep our parents updated and duly informed. However, while the overall DLP design has been decided, a lot of the details remain indefinite as we continue to consider and decide what will work best to serve the needs of the students in our context. We recognize that the DLP design is NOT a one-size, fits-all – what works for other schools may not necessarily work for us; the strategies applicable for Preschool may not necessarily work for Grades 1-3, Grades 4-6, and so forth. Please understand that this requires careful and diligent planning, and that the release of detailed and complete information concerning DLP is premature at this time.
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It is at this time that we (home and school) need to work together in support of each other, towards the success of the preparations and implementation of the DLP. I ask for your patience and understanding as we release notices to you in phases. We will release and post updates as soon as details are decided and become definite. We commit to provide the necessary details with ample lead time for your preparations for the school opening (either in July or August, which is still 1-2 months away). Please be advised that parent/ student preparations for now will only be the setting up of the required device and the internet connectivity (with speed of at least 3mbps) for the DLP.
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Take Care and Stay Safe!