COVID Policies

Recording + Uploading Live Lectures

          Given the transition to remote learning, one of the most important ways for students to continue learning is through live lessons. One of the greatest challenges that people face with remote learning is the fact that many people’s abilities to learn are hindered due to current circumstances: this can lead to people missing lessons. Among sophomores, this problem is no less prevalent. According to a Facebook poll conducted by Ryan Lee, our campaign’s co-president, 73% of sophomores who responded said that they had missed a lesson at some point during remote learning; there have also been concerns that students missed out on information during the live session even when present in class. By having teachers record and upload their lessons, we can take away this problem entirely and help to make sure that remote learning goes smoothly for everyone. Dr. Horenstein, who teaches Biology, gave live lectures and uploaded recordings to his own YouTube channel after. When asked for a comment, he says that he plans to continue. Another alternative is having teachers pre-record lessons in place of live lectures. Mr. Hiller, who teaches Geometry, went with this format last year. Mr. Hiller says that he plans to continue using this format as it was received well by students last year. We plan on cooperating with the administration and the SU to enact this policy. Although this policy could face administrative pushback, as some teachers may not be willing to record their live lessons, we believe that making the process easier for teachers by being flexible with how they can post their lessons (see Lesson Plans policy) will help to overcome this. 

Lesson Plans

          We understand that some teachers may not want to record and upload their lessons in a video format since recording zoom calls can be difficult for some teachers. Therefore, we believe it would be more achievable to have a backup plan where teachers post general outlines of their lessons so that students would be able to better understand the lesson even if they weren’t there. Often, a lesson plan can serve as a rough summary of what the class learned in the lesson. But more than a rough summary, a lesson plan can include things like a PowerPoint, textbook pages, or in some cases, teachers may even wish to do pre-recorded lessons. This policy may also be more feasible for teachers, as often, teachers already create lesson plans/minutes or have a PowerPoint to present during a live lecture. Additionally, if teachers already choose to live stream their lectures, they can still upload the powerpoints used in those lectures for students to go back and review. Therefore, uploading lesson plans instead of recording live lectures could become a viable option for teachers. Overall, this policy works towards our goals of inclusivity and transparency as it gives teachers another option to help their students. 

Chain of Communication

          Last year, during quarantine, many students had various problems with their teachers such as violations of the homework policy and incredibly heavy workloads. Of course, in many cases, it was not the fault of the teachers, but rather due to the lack of clear communication. This situation was alleviated greatly by the efforts of the students to contact teachers and APs through the chain of communications. However, the teachers and APs of this chain did not always respond, and so students resorted to asking Julian and Vishwaa to represent them. This year, with our new principal and the blended learning model, the SU presidents, Julian and Shivali will be especially busy. So through our chain of communication policy, we intend to add two more people, Ryan and Daniel to the chain. We believe that it is important that the caucus is able to represent and become the bridge between the students and the school.