Good morning dear families! Mrs. Maza here for a quick note. The regular blog post will also be coming today, so please read both.

The purpose of this post is to let you know of a decision that the 4th grade team made this week. We have decided to allow corrections to be made on the classwork. As you are aware, the science and history homework policy has changed, and there is rarely any homework in these subjects. This means that most of the work is completed inside the classroom. While this is great for the kids (and parents) in the evenings, we've learned that not all students are giving it their best effort, although classwork makes up the largest percentage of their overall grade. Most are doing a great job and we've been very pleased with this shift. But to help those who are maybe used to having a parent look over their work, we've decided that we will allow the students to "Try Again" to fix their mistakes and earn half credit back. We feel this is a win-win because they will not only boost their grades, but by taking another look at the material, they will hopefully gain more understanding as they do so. There are a couple of things you should know about this policy.

1. It is optional, not a requirement for anyone. It may be a decision that parents help them with.
2. We will allow try-agains for worksheets completed in the classroom.
3. It is not something we will do for Spalding or Comprehension Checks or math.
4. They must do these assignments the same week that the graded work is returned. We will extend through the weekend if the work is handed back to them on Friday.
5. If students miss one point, try-agains will not be allowed. This is going to create a lot more work for our assistants, so we want to minimize that a little bit.

I think that's it. Please reach out to your own child's teacher if you have any question about it. Thank you for your grace and patience as we grow and learn this year with these curricular changes.

P.S. Looking forward to seeing so many of you at FMSC today! This is the largest number of volunteers I've ever had in 9 years of doing this! Should be a lot of fun.  Serving together is a great way to build community amongst ourselves, while helping those less fortunate. Have a super day!