Academic Notes for the Fall Semester - Online course delivery

7/23/2020

Dr. Kristi Pope Key

Eagles and Eagle parents:

As you’ve likely seen our campus wide announcement about staying online for the fall, I want to send a brief message of assurance and encouragement, and I want to prepare you for more information to come soon from your faculty advisors.

We are, in many ways, heartbroken not to be having classes on campus this fall. But we are also, all of us, determined that your LSMSA academic and communal experiences will be exciting, engaging, and vital to your growth as a scholar and a citizen.

Your faculty have been working this summer to cultivate online teaching skills and to research best practices. A task force of members from each department has been meeting regularly and holding seminars for the full faculty to demonstrate resources, to review pedagogy, and to share experiences from teaching online at various other institutions. In short, your faculty are ready.

We are adjusting your course load for the Fall - this is important to note:

Instead of our traditional 6+ required classes, students will be required to take at least 4 classes but no more than 5 classes (unless graduation requirements must be met over and above the 5 classes). ¼ credit courses will not count toward your total (Science labs, CPS, some music courses, yearbook, etc).

Also, we have adjusted our online course delivery processes for the Fall - this also is important to note:

Your courses will be delivered through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous formats in myLSMSA. Early each week teachers may choose to host one required Zoom meeting for your class (either Monday or Tuesday depending on the class schedule). The rest of your work will be asynchronous throughout the week, and you’ll need to work on homework, readings, lessons, projects, etc. on a timeline that may have stringent due dates but not scheduled meetings.

In the coming days, I will share out more information with you about book distributions, course options, and upcoming ways we can be in community as a campus.

Here are the very specific next steps you need to take. Review the class list attached to this email. Consider what you need to take in the CORE 4/TOPS areas in order to stay on track for graduation. And look for an email from your faculty advisor early next week. They will reach out to talk with you about course placements, course requests, and will help you to forecast the course options that are best for you this Fall.

For all of you: I know this isn’t the Fall semester you’d hoped for. But I’m hopeful that we can have an amazing Fall, even in this ‘new normal’ where we find ourselves.

For our returners - we miss you all terribly and are so hopeful that the Spring semester finds us together again.

For our new Eagles - we are so looking forward to getting to know you, even virtually. Seriously - we welcome you and know that you are going to be vitally important to our online campus this semester.

For the Eagle parents - thank you for your faith in our school. I promise you, we will do everything we can to make sure that your students have a remarkable LSMSA academic and communal experience. Our faculty are amazing. Their presentation of the materials is engaging, exciting, rigorous, and, in many cases, life-changing for our students. Look for more materials from my desk and from faculty advisors in the weeks to come.

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Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts (LSMSA) is the preeminent state-supported residential high school with competitive admissions for Louisiana's high-achieving, highly-motivated sophomores, juniors, and seniors. As a public school, there is no tuition to attend, and assistance from the LSMSA Foundation ensures the program is available to all qualifying students regardless of family financial need.