• private school with in-person learning in los gatos
Overview
2020-21 Program
Virtual Field Trips

2020-2021 at Mulberry

Mulberry School believes there are no limits to when and where you can grow and learn.

Based on state and county guidelines, Mulberry will be prepared to offer an enriched school program either on-campus, remotely, or as a hybrid. The program has been developed with flexibility and adaptability to respond as needed to developments in the Global Pandemic and/or based on county and state guidelines.

Our Remote Learning Program is designed to meet the multifaceted needs of our educators and students when learning remotely.

Overview

  • Fully On-Campus Model
  • On-campus instruction will be in place Monday through Friday for all students. Routines and procedures will follow county/state mandates for physical distancing and cohorting.

    Class sizes will follow county/state mandates based on the number of students allowed per square foot and physical distancing mandates. Class size will be capped at 15.

    Indoor and outdoor spaces will be utilized to comply with physical distancing requirements as ordered by the County and/or the State of California.

  • Remote Learning Model
  • Synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences in small groups, whole group, or 1:1 sessions will occur 2 or 3 times per day, depending on grade level.

    Each class, JK – 8, will have, at a minimum, a synchronous opening and closing each day. Morning and closing times will vary from class to class depending on the current needs. Specific scheduling and timing will be provided by teachers.

    All classes will maintain a Google Classroom site for course management, lessons, assignments, announcements, and general communication.

    The health of students is essential. Teachers will build in time for physical activity and time away from screens. This will look different depending on ages and grades.

  • Hybrid Model
  • We are in the unique and fortunate position to have a large campus that allows for cohorting students.

    Schedules will be determined if and when this would be the only option.

    The most likely scenario would be: upper grades are A students, lower grades B students, rather than within one grade level.
    The rationale behind this is to limit overall numbers on campus.

    AB schedules, A students would attend school on campus on rotating days opposite B students. When students are not on campus, they would have remote instruction.

    Partial Day, Students would attend school for half-day either morning or afternoon, and participate in remote learning when at home.

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2020-21 Program

Classrooms, restrooms, and high-touch areas will be sanitized throughout the day and each evening. Shared indoor spaces will be closed.

Students will be provided with individual supplies to support health and safety measures. Where this is not possible, classroom materials that are shared will be cleaned and disinfected between use.

For more details, please follow this link to our Safety and Reopening Plan.

Mulberry School will offer the following class configurations for the 2020-2021 school year: JK, K, 1, 2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8.

Elementary and Middle School teams will continue to collaborate closely to coordinate and differentiate the curriculum for optimum engagement and growth. Class size will be capped at 15.

Elementary (JK-4) and Middle School (5-8) schedules will be designed to limit the broad exposure of students and maximize physical distancing.

Start and end times are as follows:

JKK1st2nd3/45/67/8
8:30-11:508:30-12:508:40-2:508:40-2:508:50-3:009:00-3:009:00-3:00

*Individual class schedules will be provided by teachers the week prior to the beginning of school.

**We will not be able to offer Extended Care in the morning. Drop off for each grade starts 10 minutes prior to the beginning of class. Please see the Safety and Reopening Plan for more details.

In the event that Mulberry has to start the year remotely, daily hours of instruction will be as follows:

JKK1st2nd3/45/67/8
Instructional Time (hrs)
(Synchronous/Asynchronous)		2.02.53.53.53.54.04.0
Independent Reading/
Physical Activity/Recess		1.01.52.52.52.52.02.0

*Individual class schedules will be provided by teachers the week prior to the beginning of school.

**We will not be able to offer Extended Care in the morning. Drop off for each grade starts 10 minutes prior to the beginning of class. Please see the Safety and Reopening Plan for more details.

If and when we are able to provide in-person instruction, families may choose for their child(ren) to receive instruction fully remotely.

A teaching team will be supporting this program. Instruction will consist of joining the student’s class remotely whenever possible and daily face-to-face check-in via zoom or google meets, among other modalities as dictated by the program or age of the student.

Below are sources teachers pull from to build Mulberry’s dynamic curriculum. This list is not inclusive but hits the major resources.

JKZoo Phonics, Social Studies Weekly, Handwriting Without Tears, Youcubed, Mystery Science
KindergartenZoo Phonics, Words Their Way, Handwriting Without Tears, Investigations Math, Rotating Thematic Curriculum, Writer’s Workshop, Dolch Sight Words, Literacy CVC, Digraphs, Guided Reading, Social Studies Weekly, Mystery Science
FirstHandwriting Without Tears, Words Their Way, Lucy Calkins Writing Pathways/Reading, 6+ 1 Traits of Writing, Rotating Thematic Curriculum, Investigations Math, Marcy Cook Math, Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative, YouCubed, Social Studies Weekly, Mystery Science
SecondHandwriting Without Tears, Words Their Way, Lucy Calkins Writing Pathways/Reading, 6+ 1 Traits of Writing, Rotating Thematic Curriculum Investigations Math, Marcy Cook Math, Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative, YouCubed, Social Studies Weekly, Mystery Science
ThirdWords Their Way, Lucy Calkins Writing Pathways, 6+ 1 Traits of Writing, Handwriting Without Tears, Marcy Cook Math, Envision Math, Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative, YouCubed, Social Studies Weekly
FourthWords Their Way, Lucy Calkins Writing Pathways, 6+ 1 Traits of Writing, Marcy Cook Math, Envision Math, Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative, YouCubed, Social Studies Weekly
FifthWords Their Way, Lucy Calkins Writing Pathways, 6+ 1 Traits of Writing, Marcy Cook Math, Illustrative Mathematics, YouCubed, Social Studies Weekly, Newsela
SixthLucy Calkins Writing Pathways, Illustrative Mathematics, YouCubed, Openup Resources, Social Studies Weekly
SeventhLucy Calkins Writing Pathways, Illustrative Mathematics, YouCubed, Openup Resources, Social Studies Weekly
EightLucy Calkins Writing Pathways, Illustrative Mathematics, YouCubed, Openup Resources, Social Studies Weekly

During remote learning, and in some cases on-site, the following applications and tools will be utilized to enhance instruction. Some applications may be class-specific.

Elementary SchoolMiddle School
Google Classroom
Flip Grid
Teaching Tolerance
Let It Ripple
Crash Course
Youcubed
A-Z ReadingFacing History and Ourselves
ZEARNMiddle School 6-8 Math Curriculum
SeesawBloomz

We will continue with goal setting conferences in the fall. These will take place virtually. Due to the continuing challenges of the pandemic, specifics are still in the planning phase. More information will be shared at our virtual back-to-school night.

Mulberry educators will closely follow student learning and assess at regular intervals throughout the school year. Assessment will consist of both formative and summative measures. Formative, an ongoing more qualitative tool, is used to provide individual student learning feedback, so that educators may respond to student needs, thus strengthening the learning process. Summative is a tool used to evaluate outcome, often against benchmarks or learning goals, and tends to be more quantitative. The assessments are class-specific and will be shared by each classroom teacher.

Current recommendation in academia is to suspend standardized and norm-referenced testing. Mulberry has decided to suspend MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) testing. Limitations due to the pandemic render this type of assessment to be unreliable at this time.

Students who have ALP’s in place will have a virtual meeting to review, update, and revise plans for the 2020-2021 school year.

Expect to be contacted for a student support meeting in the first weeks of school. These meetings will be scheduled for September and October of 2020.

Students will eat snacks/lunch in a designated outdoor area. Times will be staggered to allow for physical distancing. During inclement weather, students will eat in their classrooms.

Opportunities for play and engagement in the outdoors remain central to our program. Students will have designated areas and times for recess. More specifics on the exact location and schedules will be provided closer to the start date of school or returning to campus for in-person instruction.

Each cohort will have a designated outdoor learning space to maximize physical distancing options and provide more space for student learning.

Drama, PE, Spanish, music, and gardening will continue to be a critical part of our program at Mulberry. Delivery of these programs will be altered to meet the safety requirements at this time. Classroom teachers will be creatively providing drama and PE. For example, drama activities for a cohort might include readers’ theater, puppet shows, vignettes, debates, or improv games. For PE, examples might include jump rope, hopscotch, Simon Says, track, free play, hikes to the park, circuit workouts, and more. Teachers will utilize equipment that has been sanitized prior to student use. As much as possible, students will use individual supplies versus shared equipment

Specialists will be delivering their lessons virtually, in order to follow the guidelines for maintaining a safe cohort. In many cases, they will provide the individual student materials to the classroom teacher in advance of their lesson time. We are pleased to share that Debi Sabo will be teaching our Gardening for our elementary students, Samantha Abouav will be teaching Music for our students JK- 5th/6th, and Monica Pieratt Rodriguez will be teaching Spanish to grades JK-8.

All field trips and after-school clubs are postponed until the health conditions improve and the guidelines support a reduced need for physical distancing. Spring field trips and the scheduled overnight field trips in grades 3 through 8 will be reevaluated in the spring. Virtual on-campus programs will be explored, where appropriate, and related to content.

More details and logistics for on-campus and remote learning will be provided as more information becomes available.

Parent information and classroom communications will be coming in the weeks prior to the start of the 2020-2021 school year.

Please note, this information is subject to change as we continue to be vigilant about following health and safety guidelines that best keep our community healthy and safe.

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Virtual Field Trips

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Virtual Open House