Starting School at TOL - A Survival Guide

9/8: 1st Day of School 

• PACE whole class Meeting 
• Jumpstart and What I Need (WIN) 
• Schedule 1:1 PLP/PACE meeting 

9/9: 2nd Day of School 

• PACE Meeting 
• Jumpstart and WIN 
• Schedule 1:1 PLP/PACE meeting 

9/12-9/16 

• PACE Meeting 
• Jumpstart/WIN/Unit 0s 
• Teacher Directed Asynchronous Content (Schoology) 
• Live Small Group Meetings 
• Initial PLP/PACE Meeting: 1:1 Coaching Session 

9/13: Back to School Picnic, Supply Pick Up, School Photos 

9/19-9/23 

• Daily PACE Meetings: Whole Group 
• Pace Meeting: 1:1 Coaching Session 
• Teacher Directed Asynchronous Content 
• Live Small Group Meetings 

9/26-9/30 

• Daily PACE Meetings: Whole Group 
• Pace Meeting: 1:1 PLP Review 
• Teacher Directed Asynchronous Content 
• Live Small Group Meetings 

Email: First, check your email for communication from your student’s teacher. K-5 teachers will email the primary address on file to introduce themselves and give you more information. This communication from your K-5 teacher will include information about first day meetings and how to log in.  

JumpStart: To support the beginning of the year, TOL learners will engage in a JumpStart of sorts. At K-5, this will consist of 3 modules introducing Tech Skill, Schoology, and TOL Essentials. Much of this will be done asynchronously; learning coaches may engage and learn alongside students.  

WIN: Another part of JumpStart will be the What I Need (WIN) project. In this project, we will ask students to reflect on what they need to be successful learners. They will make a digital or physical artifact to communicate who they are and what they need to be successful.  

Teams: Students should log in to their district computer and Office 365. Student login username is their student number @tps10.org. Example: 1234567@tps10.org. Once logged in to Office 365, students should open Teams. Shortly before school starts, their class team will appear. This is where students will access live meetings.  

Weekly PACE 1:1 Meeting: Since Tacoma Online is an alternative learning experience (ALE), the attendance requirement is different than in-person schools. TOL teachers will take attendance on a weekly basis following their 1:1 PACE or PLP meetings. Students, with the support of their at home learning coach, will be expected to fill out a short, weekly form in advance of their 1:1 meeting.  

Monthly PACE PLP Meeting: Close to every 4th week, the PACE meeting will be a review of the student’s Personalize Learning Plan. A summary of this meeting will be emailed to families.  

Learning Space: First, ensure that your student has a quiet, comfortable place to complete their schoolwork. Students should be able to plug in their laptop, and also write comfortably on paper. Ideally, this could be a desk or table in a quiet room.   

Supplies: TOL will provide some supplies for students. See a list of TOL provided supplies and family suggested general supplies here. Each trimester, TOL K-5 will host a supply pick up event where families may pick up a packet of learning materials to support that trimester’s content. Please let your PACE coach know if an in-person pick up does not work for your family and we may make alternative arrangements to support your needs. Our first  

Communication: Regularly checking your email for updates from your student’s PACE coach and Tacoma Online is a vital part of success at TOL. It will also be vital for K-5 families to use their Schoology access codes to log in to Schoology to gauge student progress. We are excited to partner with you and your student. Please notify TOL office of any changes to your contact information.  

Flexible: TOL K-5 schedules will be different than in-person school schedules. At K-5, each class will have a whole group, community PACE meeting at 9AM daily. Each student will schedule one 15-minute meeting with their PACE coach. Aside from these regularly scheduled meetings, your student’s day will vary based on teacher recommendations and the learner experience your family selects. You can expect there to be approximately 30 hours of school work each week; some of this time will be live in small group meetings, some of it will be working online or with paper and pencil on asynchronous lessons. Additionally, TOL K-5 staff plan to host optional in person events. 

Learner Experiences: TOL K-5 will offer two learner experiences: Independent and Guided. Families will be asked to select which learner experience will work best for their families. The guided learner experience will consist of daily attendance at teacher facilitated, live, small group support meetings.  These guided schedules will change and adjust based on each learner’s needs throughout the year. The independent learner experience does not include live, small group support.   

Independent: the independent experience is ideal for a student who is a self-starter who enjoys working independently. A student engaged in this experience should have a learning coach present to support them during their chosen work time.  

Guided: the guided experience is ideal for students who look forward to and enjoy live meetings to support their learning. A student engaged in the guided experience will need support in logging in at the correct times throughout their day, as well as support with asynchronous content.  

Independent or Guided Pathway? 

Independent 

What it Is

What it Isn’t

Flexible: Students set their own schedule. Students may complete work in the evenings or on weekends while staying on or ahead of pace  Independent: Students may choose not to attend live content sessions.   Connected: Students maintain regular, weekly contact; they must engage in a 1:1 meeting each week with PACE coach  Progress based: Students must maintain regular progress as demonstrated through embedded assessments, experiences, and/or projects to continue on the independent pathway.

Assessment Only: It is not skipping to the tests; students must demonstrate learning in a variety of ways throughout each unit of study.   Isolated: It is not being alone, or never attending live classes. Students may opt to attend morning PACE meetings or other content sessions. Students may still participate in social opportunities.   Academics Only: teachers maintain relationships and support the whole learner.   Permanent: Students may move to the guided pathway if needed

Guided 

What it Is	What it Isn’t
Structured: Teacher created schedules that include a balance of asynchronous, small group, and 1:1 meetings.   Hybrid: A combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences. Optional in-person opportunities will be available.   Personalized: Teachers will adjust and modify schedules continuously to best meet the areas of strength and need for each student.	Traditional: It is not a traditional school day with 7+ hours of continuous meetings.   Permanent: Schedules will be subject to change based on student growth and need and teacher discretion.  One size fits all: Student learning will be personalized to accommodate their learning plan.

TOL staff and instructors use Outlook email as our primary method of communication. The info you are looking for is more than likely been emailed to you. On your TPS laptop, you can open the Outlook app (Microsoft’s email program) or you can go to www.tol.tacomaschools.org and look at the top of the page for Office 365. 

Click that and on the page that opens, look to the left for Outlook. This is your email inbox. Look for emails from Tacoma Online/TOL.

 

 

Tacoma Online uses the Edgenuity platform in partnership with Imagine Learning. Once you’re signed onto your TPS laptop, open your laptop’s Edge Internet Browser and go to: https://auth.edgenuity.com/Login/Login/Student . Your username is the same as your TPS email, StudentID@tps10.org (ex. 1234567@tps10.org). Your PACE Coach will tell you your password. Please email them. 

Be flexible and patient with yourself and your child. It can take a week or two to adjust to the program, how the curriculum works, and pacing. Some days, you may zip through work. Other days you may not, and that’s okay! Have fun learning and ask lots of questions.

We have learned that there are THREE critical success factors for students at Tacoma Online.

·      Check your TPS Outlook email daily – this is a habit you’ll need to build.

·      Communicate with and rely on your PACE Coach. They’re the first point of contact for students and families, know what’s going on, and can help you navigate anything TOL. Stay connected to them!

·      Develop and refine a schedule for doing your schoolwork. When you went to a traditional school building, the schedule was set for you and bells and adults moved you through your school day. At home doing online school, you need to manage your time and setup a schedule to do school. It can look quite different than traditional school and maybe even quite different than other TOL students – what’s important is that you have a schedule that works for you. Successful students build a schedule that provides at least 30 hours of schoolwork each week.

TOL’s PACE Program is the heart and soul of TOL. We connect every student to a mentor teacher who acts as their advocate and coach for online learning. Your PACE coach will be a teacher at TOL Middle or High School but may not be the teacher of one of your classes.

Your PACE Coach will hold (optional, but strongly suggested!) whole group PACE meetings for all their students on Monday and Friday mornings. This is a great way to meet other students in your grade at TOL! Community can be hard to find in online school and it can get lonely at home. These meetings are both fun and helpful!

Your PACE Coach is also your first point of contact at Tacoma Online and the very best person to ask a question about TOL. They will help you establish a schedule, monitor your progress, and help you succeed. They will meet with you each week for 15 minutes on MS Teams (videochat). This meeting is mandatory, required by state law for online schools, and counts as your attendance at school. If you fail to attend these meetings, it’s like missing school and you’re considered truant. Continuing to miss these meetings will require you to be removed from Tacoma Online.

We do! TOL has one middle school and two high school counselors available to help you! They can connect you to resources, help you navigate online school, connect you to the next steps after high school, and just listen. Look for an email from your counselor shortly after school starts asking you to schedule a 1-to-1 meeting with them.

Click here for our counseling team’s website

You’ll work with your PACE coach to establish and adapt as you find a schedule that works for you. The key is that your schedule establishes at least 25 hours of schoolwork time per week.

Some students find success with a schedule that mimics the traditional building schedule where they do about an hour of each class, every day. Others find that it works better for them to do two hours of half of their classes every other day – a kind of block schedule.

What matters most is that you establish a schedule and stick to it. After a week or two, you might want to try another schedule. Go for it – just stick to what you design!

We count on family partnership in this online setting. Keeping an eye on your student’s progress can help avoid disappointment or crunch times down the road. Shortly after school begins, you will begin receiving an email every Monday, from the Edgenuity system showing their ACTUAL grade in each class, and their OVERALL grade.

These two types of grades take a bit of getting used to.

OVERALL Grade is the grades given on all the work they have turned in. It’s a measure of the quality of their work. If your student has turned in one assignment and received 100%, the overall grade will be 100%. However, this can be misleading…What if there have been 5 assignments due and they’ve only submitted the one assignment? They’re behind in the class but overall grade doesn’t account for this.

ACTUAL Grade accounts for your student’s progress in the course as well as the quality of their work. Take the example above where a student got 100% on one assignment but was missing 4 others. This student has only done 1 of 5 assignments and is only 20% on pace (they’re behind). Actual grade multiplies these two.

100% (overall grade) times 20% (pace) = ACTUAL GRADE = 20% - E

While they’re done good work on one assignment, they’re quite behind and in the email progress report you’d see an Actual grade of 20%, an E in the class. This student is behind and will need to work more each week to catch up.

When a student is “on pace” in their class, the Actual grade and the Overall grade are the same.