CDH Moved to Online School

March 25, 2020

While the CDH campus is closed to combat the spread of coronavirus, our commitment to quality education continues.

Online School officially started for students on Thursday, March 19, 2020 and will last until May 4, per Governor Walz's order.  Please see our Online School webpage at c-dh.org/OnlineSchool. The teachers and staff worked long hours earlier in the week, and in the weeks before, to prepare for the significant shift to online school.

While the experience of attending school online will be dramatically different than in-person classes, we are committed to offering a structured academic experience for our students.

Online School Schedule. Online School is following an A/B schedule. On A days, students have classwork from periods 1, 3, 5, and 7. One B Days, they will have classwork from periods 0, 2, 4, and 6. Thursday, March 19, is an A day and the days will alternate from there. 

Student Expectations. Students are expected to check their CDH email accounts by 10 am each school day. They should expect to spend about one hour on classwork for each class on the days they "meet" (with an expected 1.5 hours for Honors and AP classes). This includes both synchronous learning time and homework time. While this will total fewer hours than students typically spend engaged in academics, we recognize that many of our students will have additional responsibilities at home during this time, such as caring for younger siblings.

Teachers have the option to require synchronous learning time, in which, students are online for more of a group learning experience, which could be a Google Hangout or other group activity online. All of those times would fall between 10 am and 2 pm. 

Teacher Availability. Teachers will also be available for at least one hour each day between 8 am and 4 pm to answer questions. The schedule for each teacher's 'online office hours' is posted online - and available here.  

Attendance. Each day, students will need to fill out a Google Form for each class which will confirm their attendance. As usual, teachers and deans will continue to follow up with students who are not attending class or completing their work.

Value of Community. We know that this is a difficult transition. The educators at CDH are committed to providing the best possible experience for our students under challenging circumstances. The CDH community is one of the things that makes our school so special, and the temporary loss of togetherness is difficult for all of us. 

"Our students are sad, our seniors especially." Principal Mona Passman reminded staff at the faculty in-service day to prepare for Online School. "There's all this talk about how all kids do is TikTok and text and they don't care about relationships - but they absolutely do. And it's all being taken away from them right now. They may be struggling, but we will get through this together and as a community."

For the latest on CDH's coronavirus response, visit c-dh.org/coronavirus. For the latest on Online School, visit c-dh.org/onlineschool.