Welcome to A2 Virtual+ for the 2022-2023 School Year!  

 

The A2 Virtual+ staff is excited to work with you and your students this fall. The A2 Virtual+ Secondary program has students in almost every Ann Arbor Public School building with students in 5th grade through 12th grade taking one online class or all their classes online. Students who have been with us will start noticing some of the changes we have been working on this summer. We have redesigned our Schoology classrooms to be more consistent across content areas; added a new online tool for all students to support their writing; and building liaisons have returned to the middle and high school buildings. Our goals and aspirations continue to support our mission statement: 

 

The mission of A2 Virtual+ Academy is to provide all students with the opportunity to take innovative, flexible, non-traditional classes as part of their individual education plan on the path to graduation.

 

This newsletter will include headers that will hopefully allow you to navigate the information pertaining to you and your child.  There are important deadlines and information for each semester and trimester for students taking specific courses such as AP or Middle School Math Acceleration. Please read each newsletter to have the most current information about the program. 

 

This newsletter will focus on the following topics:

• New A2 Virtual+ Principal  - Anthony Lauer

• Orientation Materials

• Online Count Month and Attendance Explained

 

New A2 Virtual+ Principal  - Anthony Lauer

I am pleased to share with you that I, Anthony Lauer, am the new A2 Virtual+ Secondary Principal. I am excited to continue conversations about online learning with students, parents, and teachers in my expanded role. I have embraced opportunities to teach and administer programs for the last 22 years with Ann Arbor Public Schools. I have been supporting and administering online learning in Ann Arbor Public School for 15 years. I started as an online instructor during the summer of 2007 and have continued to support and grow the program.

I look forward to our conversations about how to best support your student(s) while learning in an online environment.  

 

Here is a link to my complete letter of introduction. 

 

Orientation Materials

 

The orientation slide deck is a great resource to give you a broad overview of the A2 Virtual+ program. I encourage you to review it if you have not already seen it. The orientation information was provided at the start of the course in every Schoology online classroom, and teachers then provided additional resources to explain information specific to their online class. The orientation slide deck has information about counseling help, the calendar, expectations, attendance, proctored testing, policies, resources, and where to find information in Schoology. I will go into more depth about each topic in future Parent Newsletters. 

 

Link to orientation slides

 

 

Online Count Month and Attendance Explained

For online classes, attendance is not recorded the same way as in the traditional building. Attendance in an online class is defined by two-way communication between the student and their teacher. This attendance interaction is only required once weekly and is completed through an assignment in Schoology for each class. The state defines a week for online classes as Wednesday - Tuesday. Since attendance is required only once per week, we decided that the student would complete the activity in Schoology on Wednesday and that teachers would record attendance on Mondays in PowerSchool. If a student does not complete the attendance activity on Wednesday, they will be marked unverified, UNV, in PowerSchool the following Monday. A " CA " attendance code means that the student completed the activity and has positive attendance for that week. Attendance will be recorded for every week of the term. 

 

In addition to attendance being different for online classes, count day is also defined differently. For student count, a student must have positive attendance for four weeks, starting with Count Day, which this year is October 5th, 2022. Positive attendance is defined as completing the attendance activity in Schoology. Thank you in advance for supporting our program and helping your student(s) remember to complete attendance every Wednesday.

  

We are looking forward to a great term, 

 

Anthony Lauer