Dear DSST Parents, 

I hope this letter finds you healthy and well.  I write today to share a personal, transparent view of the upcoming school year with you, parent to parent, and as the CEO of DSST.  I am very proud to work with the DSST team, more than 800 strong across our 15 schools. It is an amazing group of educators who love your children.   Educating your student is a sacred responsibility, even more so in the midst of a pandemic.  I am very grateful that you have entrusted us to educate your children this year.  

As a fellow parent, I know the last six months have been incredibly challenging. Guiding our children through the spring in online school, finding a new normal without summer activities,   and managing the uncertainty and emotions of a pandemic has left most of us exhausted.  I recognize that this summer has been even more stressful with a steady stream of announcements from school districts on re-opening decisions, virtual versus hybrid, delayed starts.  I am sorry for that.  And now, we are all grappling with the first 7 weeks of the school year in a remote environment, which is such a disappointment--for me, for you, and for our children.  

I want to come alongside you, both as a parent, but also as a CEO trying to make good decisions that always put students at the center.  I’d like to transparently share my thinking in three areas:  1) Our commitment to you and your child this year, 2) My thinking on planning for the year, and 3) How we can partner together. 

DSST Commitments to Your Family

Our entire team across our 15 schools is committed to providing your child with an outstanding DSST education in the coming year.  It may not happen in the same way it has in the past, given that we could be online, in-person or in a hybrid mode at different times throughout the year.  As I’ve previously shared, we will make a decision on October 1st about whether to return to our school buildings after Fall Break.  And the truth is, I remain hopeful that at least a hybrid option will be possible.

We also know it will be more challenging to provide a world-class education to our students this year, but we are determined to deliver on the qualities that make a DSST education great:  strong, inclusive learning communities, deep meaningful relationships, a great college preparatory STEM program, personal connections with our families.  A few thoughts on each. 

• Community: It’s not easy to foster a sense of community virtually, where our students feel known, connected and loved.  But, we are doubling-down on this commitment, as we believe it is crucial to student learning.  We will do this through concentric circles of relationships starting with morning meetings, advisories, and extra time for community building in all classes during E-School this fall. We are pushing deeper into our practices to ensure our organization and schools reflect anti-racist commitments and truly inclusive communities. 
• Relationships: Strong relationships that support and love your students need to be at the center of E-School. We are placing extra focus and training on this with our team.  We don’t want any student falling through the cracks, so we will be tracking whether each student has a trusting teacher relationship and paying close attention to if students have meaningful peer relationships.  We also hope to create some small outside, safe in-person opportunities in the first 7 weeks to foster relationship building.
• Learning: We have set an ambitious goal that all students will learn as much this year as a typical year.  This is ambitious, but is an important goal to honor our commitment to you. For this first phase of the year in E-School, we are implementing several strategies to strengthen the learning of your students  
• Operating a full “normal” school day online, roughly, 8AM - 3PM.  Students need this learning time.  We are working hard to incorporate strategies that don’t always require video, in order to reduce screen fatigue.
• Providing more synchronous learning along with more typical class sizes (20-35) so that students are learning directly from teachers and each other in smaller settings.
• Frequent checks on how your student is progressing by using shorter tests to assess their learning  
• Pilot offering additional STEM and Arts courses as “opt ins” that are open to all High School students across our schools.  These courses will be taught by some DSST's experts in their content area across our network, some after school, and working to open up some during school, scheduling permitting.
• Individual college counseling for our seniors to help them navigate the unique complexities of the college process this year. 
• Staying Connected with You:  Lastly, we are committed to staying very connected with you as parents on how things are going.  You gave us positive feedback last spring on E-School, as well as our efforts to keep you informed.   But, you also asked for more regular communication from advisors and teachers.  Based on that feedback, we will provide you with regular progress reports every two weeks, beginning September 11th. 

The Plan for the Year

Thank you for all of the feedback and thoughts many of you have sent to me in response to the decision to continue with remote learning until Fall Break.  In the spirit of transparency, I wanted to share a bit of the feedback that I received.  In order of frequency, families sent me the following:

1. Thank you for making a difficult, but right decision for safety purposes right now
2. Thank you for making this decision early so we can plan as we are tired of the flip-flopping decisions we are reading about.
3. I am disappointed as I want my child doing some sort of in-person learning as soon as possible. 

I share all three of those sentiments. In my view, they are all equally valid viewpoints.  So how are we going to proceed? Here are a few of my guiding thoughts.  

1. We desire to be as much as possible in-person with your students this year.  My true hope is that we will be moving to an “in-person” option post fall break. This may be hybrid or full in-person depending upon health guidance. Science should support any responsible decision to re-open.  We need to do this safely and responsibly within the conditions of Denver and Aurora.  As many school districts are doing, we are currently working with leaders to get a clearer set of metrics that will better inform transparent decision-making. 
2. Health officials will play a disproportionate role in these decisions.  For example, the current  Denver Health guidance in July required that students travel in a cohort of no more than 35 all day long.  This limitation made flexible scheduling nearly impossible, which played an important role in our decision to start remote.  
3. I expect that we could go back and forth between E-School and in-person all year long.  This thinking is based on the early experiences of schools who have tried to re-open across the country.  In the event that these transitions happen, we will try to give you as much notice as possible. 
4. We will seek input from all parts of the DSST community, families, students, and staff as we make our first decision by October 1 about post-fall break plans.  Your insights are very important to me.

As I have learned during the pandemic, expect the unexpected.  I do not know what the coming year will hold, but I hope these guiding thoughts will help you understand our thought process as we navigate decisions. 

How can we partner together?

Creating a fantastic school year for your children will require a true team effort.  We need to work together through what will be many twists and turns.  Great collaboration requires a shared goal, shared understanding of how we are achieving the goal, and consistent communication.  We all share the goal of providing your children with a great year of learning, of personal development in warm, inclusive communities.

In times of difficulty and challenge, great communities rise to become something better than they were.  I believe all of us, together, will do that this year, ensuring the DSST community and our students will be better versions of themselves at the conclusion of this year.  

I deeply want each of your children to have a fantastic year.  Let’s go make that happen together.  

Bill