Capital Region BOCES > Archive > Student Instruction During the School Closure
Posted on

Student Instruction During the School Closure

Contact information updated April 12, 2021

The last day of remote learning for all Capital Region BOCES school-age students will be Friday, June 12. This includes students enrolled in our Capital Region P-TECH, Career and Technical Education, Pathways and Special Education programs.

There will be no remote instruction on Memorial Day, Monday, May 25.

On this page, you will find information related to:

Expectations for Students’ At-Home Learning
Grading During the School Closure
CTE Curriculum/Instruction and Exemptions Approved by NYSED
Standards-Based Resources For Educators

The ongoing COVID-19/Coronavirus public health emergency and related school closure has challenged us to find new ways to support our students’ learning.

Our goal throughout the closure is to provide students with opportunities to be engaged and continue learning new material guided by their teachers. 

We are grateful for the support of our students’ parents and guardians during these during this challenging time. To support their learning at home, we ask that you:

  • help your children develop new at-home routines to remain engaged in their learning.
  • encourage your children to participate with their learning and connect with their teachers daily.

Visit the Capital Region BOCES Instructional Learning Resources website for age-appropriate resources by grade level and subject or building site/program. Here you will also find links to access individual teacher’s Google classrooms.

Expectations for Students’ At-Home Learning

We have worked with our component districts  to set reasonable and practical expectations for students’ at-home learning . This includes significantly reduced expectations for how much time students spend on learning each week and a simplified, non-traditional model of grading based on measures of student learning. 

Adjustments to time guidelines may be made for students in certain programs. These adjustments will be communicated by the teacher to families and students.

Recommended amount of time for students’ at-home learning (including time spent learning new material, watching video lessons, participating in class discussions and completing assigned work and activities):

  • Grades K-2 — 2.5 hours total per week for ELA and math, with an additional one hour per week for learning in other disciplines (3.5 hours per week total)
  • Grades 3-5 — 4 hours total per week for ELA and math, with an additional one hour per week for learning in other disciplines (5 hours per week total)
  • Grades 6-8 — 2 hours each per week for ELA, math, science and social studies, with an additional 2 hours per week for all other subject areas (10 hours per week total)
  • Grades 9-12 — 3 hours per week for each credit-bearing course (24 hours per week total)

A daily condensed schedule will provide structure and routine for students and parents, while also giving students flexibility to work outside of scheduled times.

Grading During the School Closure

BOCES administration is working hand-in-hand with the New State Education Department (SED) to address several issues as they relate to student learning and the opportunities needed to advance their education. As such, we will not use our “formal” grading standard while schools are closed. Instead, students will receive one of two options:

  • Evidence of Learning — The student has demonstrated learning of essential curriculum based on what was taught and assigned.
  • Not Yet Learned — The student has not completed an assignment, or work completed does not yet demonstrate learning of essential curriculum. The student will be given the opportunity to redo and resubmit work to demonstrate learning.

CTE Curriculum/Instruction and Exemptions Approved by NYSED

Guidance for the New York State Education Department (SED) related to students attending our Career and Technical School programs includes:

  • Approval to use Evidence of Learning and Not Yet Learned instead of traditional letter grades;
    • During the third quarter, students received a Pass or Incomplete. By this time any student who received an Incomplete should have been contacted by their program teacher and/or counselor with information on how they can change that Incomplete to a Pass. Students/families who do not believe they have been contacted about this or who need more information should contact their campus principal:
  • The ability to substitute virtual hours for typically mandated hands-on clinical hour requirements for some programs (Cosmetology, Two-Year Sequence Health Careers), as well as exemptions for work-based learning hour requirements for CTE programs and the CDOS Commencement Credential and + 1 Pathway;
  • Flexibility to exempt students from the technical assessments typically required as part of their coursework;
  • Flexibility in awarding students technical endorsements. In the absence of technical assessment data, Capital Region BOCES has determined that technical endorsements will be awarded based on the following guidelines: teacher recommendation, a score of 80% or higher calculated from the first two quarters of the student’s senior year, and a “Pass” in the remaining two quarters.

Standards-Based Resources For Educators

We have collaborated with our 24 component school districts to develop high-quality, standards-based lessons and resources focused on the most essential curriculum for our students in K-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and math, middle-level science and social studies, and Regents courses.

The concepts and lessons provided are those that are foundational to students’ future learning.

BOCES’ teachers will be using these resources as a springboard to customize their own lessons and make adjustments as needed to ensure they are developmentally appropriate for their students.