| To: | Suffield Families | | From: | Brian Hendrickson | | RE: | Consideration of Early Release Day | | Date: | November 23, 2016 |
The Suffield School District is exploring a one-hour early release day for the 2017-18 school year to allow for stronger collaboration among our faculty, which will lead to improving the quality of our instruction with students. We are sure you have questions, and we are here to answer them! On Tuesday, November 29th at 6:00 p.m., teachers and administrators will conduct a 40-minute online community forum via an online platform to discuss the rationale and impact of an early release day. This will allow participants to hear background on the need for increased teacher collaboration time, to obtain information about the early-release proposal, and to pose questions live, either via keyboard or verbally. No need for special equipment — your phone or your computer is all you need. It’s easy to join the discussion. Monday, November 28th, the day before the forum, a group access code and link will be posted on the school website and emailed out to all families, along with directions to join the discussion. An additional reminder will be sent shortly before the forum on November 29th. Though we will try to account for all the contingencies, you may want to login 15 to 20 minutes early to be sure that everything is up and running with your system. Don’t worry if you cannot join us online! A recording of the entire forum, as well as key takeaways from the questions and answer period, will be posted at www.suffield.org. In addition to the online forum, we are holding in-person parent focus groups. The first session will be held on Tuesday, December 6th at 6:00 p.m. at McAlister Intermediate School. The second session will be held on Wednesday, December 7th 5:30 p.m. at Suffield High School. | 
