The following message is from Edmund J. O'Neal School of Excellence Principal Rachel Stead:

Dear Families,

I wanted to provide you with some updates as we shift to virtual learning for the rest of this week.

Our school community was able to pivot quickly following the announcement last Friday that our students would shift to virtual learning this week due to the water damage that occurred during spring break. I want to thank all of you for your patience and support as we work through this situation. 

Thanks to the work of our school and district staff, translators and PTA networks, we were able to successfully get the message out in multiple languages letting families know of our plans for this week. Our teachers and staff worked diligently Monday morning to organize instructional materials for the week, and by 5 p.m. the vast majority of student materials had been picked up.

Our Student Support Team is working with families to get the remaining materials distributed.

For the rest of this week, students should log into their Google Classroom at the normal start to their school day. For students in Grades 6-12, they will log into their first-period class at 8:30 a.m. For elementary students, they should log into Google Classroom at 9 a.m. Teachers will provide students with an overview of their daily schedule for the rest of the week.

State math testing for our students in grades 3-8 has been postponed. We are looking to reschedule this in-person sometime next week. I will communicate details about this once they are finalized.

We also are working on our plans for next week and will have more information about that in the coming days. Please note that all district schools and offices will be closed Tuesday, May 3 in observance of Eid al-Fitr.

Our April PTA meeting has been rescheduled from Wednesday to Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Our PTA has graciously agreed to move the meeting date so that Superintendent Adams and other district representatives can participate to answer questions and share information about our situation. You can use this Google Meet link to join Thursday’s meeting.

Several families have reached out to me and shared their frustration and concerns around the current situation with the building and the shift to virtual learning. I completely understand these feelings and want you to know that there is nothing I strive for more than to have a safe and disruption-free learning environment for our students.

I am confident that once this work in our building is complete, our community will be reassured that our students and staff are teaching and learning in a safe space. 

I will continue to update you with information as it becomes available.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to me for any reason at all. While our main office has been physically relocated to the Tony Clement Center for Education this week, our main switchboard number of (518) 475-6600 has traveled with us. You can reach me at that number or through my email, rstead@albany.k12.ny.us.

Sincerely,

Rachel Stead

Principal