Glendale Adventist Academy will go into a distance learning format from March 30 - May 4, 2020.

March 25, 2020

Dear GAA Family,

I hope you are doing your best to be restful and are finding new, meaningful ways to spend your time at home. The challenges we are facing today regarding COVID-19 are unprecedented and fluid, requiring adjustments as new information arrives daily. 

Following a recommendation from the Southern California Conference Office of Education and the Glendale Unified School District, the expected date of return to school will be Tuesday, May 5, 2020. We will provide you with updates as we receive them from the Southern California Conference Office of Education.

I am extremely proud of the work our faculty has done to plan for distance learning. All of our teachers are fully prepared to deliver lessons to students remotely. Teachers will communicate with students and families on a regular basis. We encourage you to check your emails daily to find updates and new information from the teachers. 

As you may have found out by now, we are deploying a combination of Google Classroom and BigBlueButton as the platform for our distance learning program. We have communicated with the students and have also communicated at different times with parents on how to set up this platform for use starting Monday, March 30, 2020. If you still have challenges or doubts about what to do, kindly contact the child’s homeroom teacher for directions. You may also wish to reach out to Mr. Erwin Gonzales, our IT Director for guidance, tutorials and if you need to borrow a Chrome book for the period of the school closure: egonzales@glendaleacademy.org 

Before school starts on Monday, March 30, we will publish a schedule of classes for the benefit of the students and for the attention of you the parent, to allow you to know what your child is expected to be working on at any given time of the day.

We recognize that children have a tendency to be distracted by the use of digital devices.  We, therefore, solicit your help in helping the students stay focused and be on task for their school time at home. This may require monitoring their activities and time on the devices. It is our plan to report any abuse of the classroom etiquette by students to their parents, in an effort to correct such situations as quickly as possible. This will allow us to maintain the integrity of the education we wish to deliver to your child.

Kindly direct questions about the child/ward’s schoolwork to the homeroom teacher as the frontline person to provide up-to-date answers. You may also feel free to direct other questions to me: iolaore@glendaleacademy.org 

Thank you for entrusting your children to our care. It’s a delicate partnership and we pray that by God’s grace the trust will be rewarded. God will protect us through this period.

Blessings.

Israel Olaore
Principal