Urban Assembly School of Music and Art

Hello UAMA Families,

Please read the attached letter regarding June regents cancellations. Please reach out to our parent coordinator, Ms.Copeland, at copeland1@uamusicandart.org, with any questions or concerns.

Please complete the remote learning survey to give your feedback about your experiences with remote learning over the last few weeks. 

Hello UAMA Families,

Please see the attached letter regarding senior activities at UAMA. Please contact our parent coordinator, Cierra Copeland, at copeland1@uamusicandart.org, with any questions or concerns.

Hello UAMA Families,

Please see the attached letter regarding school closures for the remainder of the academic school year. Please contact our parent coordinator, Cierra Copeland, at copeland1@uamusicandart.org, with any questions or concerns.

The Urban Assembly School of Music and Art has compiled a variety of resources for families to utilize during this time of transition in our country. This resource guide functions as a centralized information hub for families. We hope you find the information useful for any social supports you may need during this time. Please click here to access the resource guide.

Dear Families:

Since closing school buildings and shifting to remote learning last week, all of you, in partnership with our more than 150,000 staff, have shown incredible resilience and fortitude as we leap into a new reality. Together, we have been transforming public education in the nation’s largest school system in ways we never imagined even a few weeks ago.

Throughout this process, we have approached every decision with the health, safety, and continuous learning of our students at the forefront of our minds. Through it all, I’ve emphasized that we need to operate with flexibility and patience for all our school communities.

Those values, along with the fact that social distancing remains an imperative for all New Yorkers, means we must take a new approach to Spring Recess, originally scheduled for Thursday, April 9 through Friday, April 17, 2020.

For the health and wellbeing of all New Yorkers, the City and the State are in agreement that schools must continue to offer remote learning, including during days that were previously scheduled as breaks. As a result, our schools will continue with remote learning through the time originally scheduled for Spring Recess.

We know that many New Yorkers plan to observe religious holidays on April 9 and 10. Any students and school staff who individually wish to observe those holidays may do so. However, these days will not be considered “days off” for the school system, and remote learning activities will continue for students who are not observing the holidays. Here is additional important information for families during this time:

Remote Learning

We know that Spring Recess is a time of rest and recharging for our educators and students alike—and we know how hard all of our students and educators have been working to adapt to a new approach to learning.
With this in mind, we will offer schools remote learning resources that focus on daily themes and enrichment activities for all students for April 9-17. This will keep students and their teachers meaningfully engaged and connected with each other and ideas happening in the world around them—even as we all remain socially distant at home.

Resources will include “theme” days (e.g., wellness, world language, computer science, college and career readiness) and taking advantage virtually of the unparalleled educational and cultural resources right here in the city (e.g., museums, libraries, and cultural institutions)

More information on these activities will be shared with schools next week. We are confident that continuing remote learning will help ensure that families adhere to social distancing in the coming weeks, which is imperative to slowing the spread of the virus and keeping ourselves and our neighbors safe.

Regional Enrichment Centers

Regional Enrichment Centers (RECs) serve the children of first responders, healthcare workers, and other essential employees across the City. The majority of the REC sites will remain open from April 9-17. We will proactively communicate with families who may need to be temporarily reassigned to a REC during that time. Visit schools.nyc.gov/recs for more information.

Free Meals

Meal Hubs offer free meals to any New Yorker who wants them. The majority of our Meal Hub sites will also continue to operate. To find the nearest Meal Hub to you during this period or anytime, visit schools.nyc.gov/freemeals.

Health Precautions

We know our families are working hard to stop the spread of coronavirus. People who do not show symptoms may still be able to spread COVID-19, and therefore the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) recommends wearing a face covering or mask whenever you leave home. A face covering will not protect you from infection, but it can help others. A face covering can include anything that covers your nose and mouth, including dust masks, scarves and bandanas. Do not use health care worker masks, as those must be preserved for people in the health care system. Even if you have a face covering, continue to stay home as much as possible and avoid close contact with other people. Please visit nyc.gov/coronavirus for more information and an FAQ on face coverings, as well as other important information on the virus.

We continue to operate with health, safety, and high-quality learning as our top priorities for every child and adult in the DOE community across all five boroughs. Time and time again, you and your children—and all the educators who serve them—are proving that New York City has the best students and staff in the world, and that nothing will ever change
that.

Please call 311 or visit schools.nyc.gov for any questions regarding Spring Break, RECs, Free Meals, and much more. As always, you should reach out to your teacher, principal, and others at your school for continued information about remote learning and your child.

Sincerely,
Richard A. Carranza

Hello Parents and Guardians,

The NYCDOE has created a tool to help you find places around your area to pick up “Grab and Go” meals for your kids. No registration, ID, or documentation will be required, and all three meals may be picked up at the same time. Parents and Guardians may pick up meals for their children if they please.

Click here to access the site

I recommend you bookmark the site or share it with other friends and family when you get the change.

Thank you!!

Dear families,

We are thinking of all of you during these challenging and uncertain times. As we navigate through uncharted territories, let us remember that we are a community and distance does not mean that we need to be distant. 

UAMA is committed to ensuring that our students have access to the daily rigorous instruction and emotional support they are accustomed to while we practice remote learning. This email will lay out our most immediate next steps, as well as provide resources we hope will be helpful to you and your family during this crisis.

In order to best support our community we will use the uamusicandart.org website as the main hub for conveying information, posting updates, and as an access portal to our remote learning platform. Please make sure that you are checking the website daily for news and updates. We will also us the Kinvolved texting platform to communicate directly to parents and students with links to any new update. 

During this time of remote learning, it is imperative that we have the most up-to-date contact information for both our parents and students. Our staff have spent that last 24 hours reaching out to all of our households to ensure that we have current email addresses and cell phone numbers. If you have not heard from us, it is because we have not been able to reach you. Please immediately fill out this link Parent Contact Form so that we can effectively communicate with you. 

Below we have organized under specific headings how remote learning will be rolled out and how families may obtain technology. We are here to support you during these uncertain times so please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or need assistance. 

Our thoughts are with you. 

Please be well,

Paul Jonathan Thompson

Founding Principal 

Urban Assembly School of Music and Art

Technology

On March 19, 2020 we will be providing laptops to families that need them. We have a limited number of resources and they will be distributed on a first come first serve basis. Parents will need to be present and fill out the STUDENT DEVICE LOAN AGREEMENT in order to obtain a laptop. Please email our Parent Coordinator, Cierra Copeland copeland1@uamusicandart.org if you need a laptop. 

Also on March 19, 2020 between 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM we will have available Hot Spot devices in order for students to access to access the internet. They will also be distributed on a first come first serve basis. 

All remote instruction will be conducted through Google Classroom. This is a technology that all of our teachers have employed for a number of years so this will not be new for students. In order to access Google Classroom every student has an individualized UAMA Gmail account that they use to access all of their classes. Parents can access all of their student’s classes and see their work deliverables through their students account. If you want Guardian Access to your students Google Classroom you must request access by emailing the teacher of the course directly. Once they receive you request they will invite you to have Guardian Access.  

General Instructional Philosophy

At UAMA we believe that the most powerful work we can be engaged is building our students analytical skills so that they can effectively navigate the dominant culture. The most effective way of doing this is by building their ability to be proficient readers, writers, and their capacity to build coherent and reasoned arguments. Toward this end all lessons, curriculum planning and team meeting time is dedicated to improving students’ skills in these three areas. This focus builds our students’ literacy and requires students to employ these three modalities to independently complete complex tasks. To achieve this, students are responsible for completing a marking period deliverable that includes the writing of an augmentative essay. All of this is to say, that as we engage in remote learning, all students will be responsible for reading rigorous texts that their teachers will organize, doing copious amounts or writing – either through daily free writes and the Marking Period Deliverable, and engaging in discussions through video conferencing centered around developing and defending a point of view. 

Daily Instruction

All UAMA courses utilize Google Classroom to present student facing materials (documents, playlist readings, activities, prompts, etc.) daily, weekly, and marking period deliverables (daily response posts, google classroom questions and peer replies), and Projects (all student work builds toward the demonstration of Five Key Cognitive Strategies (KCS) Proficiency in End of Marking Period and End of Course Mastery Based Projects).

At UAMA we believe that learning does not stop in the classroom or during the school period/day. Students have 24hour access to all materials through the online learning platforms already employed across the school.

All learning activities are divided into two learning formats:

1. Synchronous learning which refers to a learning event in which a group of students are engaging in learning at the same time, like video conferencing.

1. Asynchronous learning is a student-centered teaching method that uses online learning resources to facilitate information sharing outside the constraints of time and place among a network of people.

Synchronous Education 

Teachers will be available online to students for instructional supports during specific “office hours” of availability to respond directly to student needs. During office hours teachers will be available for 4 hours a week to provide direct instruction through Goggle Meets, a live on-line video conferencing platform. Below is the schedule for office hours: 

• HUMANITIES & MUSIC MONDAY & WEDNESDAY

10:00 – 11:00 AM

1:00 – 2:00 PM

• STEM & PHYS ED TUESDAY & THURSDAY  

10:00 – 11:00 AM

1:00 – 2:00 PM

• BARD Sequence EVERYDAY MON-THURS 

AM 9:00 – 10:00 

• Peer Group Collective FRIDAY

10:00 AM

ASynchronous Education

Asynchronous instruction includes all of the direct student-centered work students are responsible for completing independently. Examples of this include: 

• Daily Free-write Prompts (approx. 15-20 minutes a day, 75-100 minutes a week) 
• Weekly Reading and Response (1 hour a day, 5 hours a week) from a playlist of curated rigorous readings posted weekly on google classroom
• Students select a minimum of two texts to read and respond to using a dialectical model providing evidence from the text used to support a claim the student is making based on response to a course essential question, OR evidence is analyzed by the student to demonstrate how the text connects to course essential questions
• Student post responses to multiple peers’ replies
• Weekly / Marking Period Deliverable (approx. 5 hours a week)