Dear Parents of 3rd-5th Graders,

I hope you all are doing well and staying healthy.  I know I speak for the McNair Staff when I say that we are deeply saddened that we are not connected with your children on a daily basis.  Please hug your child(ren) and let them know that we all miss them! 

Beginning next Monday, April 20th, Hazelwood School District will be launching e-learning with Odysseyware for all third, fourth, and fifth grade students.  While your child’s teacher will support your child through this process, I have attached a step by step guide to navigating the Odysseyware website to this email for your convenience.  Your child’s username is their 6-digit student ID and their password is HSDmmddyy (of their birthday).

While the teacher will plan & assign learning activities in reading, math, science and social studies, your child should work on 2-3 content areas a day as scheduled by the teacher.  Odysseyware includes videos to assist students and will also read the lessons and follow-up questions for additional support.  Each academic lesson is chunked into manageable sections, which allow your child to work at his/her pace.  The program also allows students to type questions for the teacher directly on the website alerting the teacher to the child’s comments.  For our EL learners, lessons and directions can be translated to the preferred language of choice.  For our students receiving additional support for various reasons, you may also reach out to those teachers for academic support.

To help balance the academic learning provided by Odysseyware, we are encouraging students to also:

1. Read for at least 20 minutes each day.
2. Practice multiplication facts for 10 minutes each day
3. Choose a special area activity to participate in or complete each day.  (You can find these activities on the McNair Elementary School Website)

I am aware that what we are all experiencing can be stressful for adults and for children.  While we want students to participate in learning Monday-Friday, please help support your child’s learning by also providing daily brain breaks of fun, preferred activities.  Classroom teachers will continue to provide support through Google Classroom, Dojo, email, and for some, Google Meets.  We are all in this together...and together we will come out better and stronger than ever!

Your partner in education,

Dr. Sally Perano

Principal