Dear ASM Parents,

Greetings on a lovely spring day. I do hope you are able to get some fresh air into your life, one way or another. Small gifts, like beautiful weather, are an even greater treasure when we are enduring the deprivation of house-arrest.

ASM is into Week #5 of online learning. We continue to receive grateful and helpful emails from parents, letting us know that what we are doing--while perhaps not perfect--is working, is keeping students engaged and busy, and is giving them purpose and structure during lock-in. We will continue to do so for as long as is necessary. 

The Lombardia government, as I’m sure you are aware, wrote this weekend to extend school closure to April 15. As this is during our spring break, it doesn’t really affect our plans and hopes to be back on campus April 20. We are aware that now ASM’s scheduled spring break becomes a question: do we observe the break as scheduled (but while in our homes) or teach through and try to reclaim those holidays when we are out of containment and able to enjoy them? We are weighing the options.

Also new this weekend was the IB’s news that IB exams for seniors world wide have been cancelled. The announcement was less than complete and left many questions in the air. The IB Office promised more answers and clarity by Friday, March 27th. Until then, we are asking our seniors to ‘hang in there’ and await further news. In the meantime, we are continuing with senior classes and plan to do so through April, as per the previous schedule. 

My days are busy with meetings as I work to stay abreast of the latest and to help in guiding ASM to the best possible end of the year. Yesterday, I had a video conference with the ASM Leadership team and another with ASM Counselors and Upper School Administration. I was also in a ZOOM meeting with the Heads of IB schools in Italy, discussing the IB announcement. Today, I’ve been in a 77 person Zoom with the ASM Senior class and Counselors, as well as a meeting with our Principals to talk about the status of the Italian test prep offered on ASM’s campus, and I’ll have yet another with the Upper School Administration to talk about issues specific to the Upper School….so, like our ASM students, lots of time on screen, working through challenges. 

I’ll leave you with two excellent articles that I think help frame our current situation in some historical and sociological context. The first provides a historical look at other epidemics and some of the lessons learned in leadership, in particular, from those events. You can find it here. The second, from noted author Yuval Harari, provides some ideas for humanity’s best chances for moving forward from this current mess with progress, rather than regression. You can find it here. Finally, this short piece offers a ‘more hopeful accounting’ for how we are looking at our statistics in Italy. From the New York Times, here.

I wish you all a peaceful week as ASM continues to work to provide meaning and also a spark to your children’s days. Check out tomorrow’s ES Assembly for some fun! You may also want to check out ASM’s new COVID-19 website, which we hope will be of use to our community. You can find it here. 

Wayne

ASM Closure Update: Closure Day #17; ASM Online Day #16; Lockdown Day #7

Greetings ASM Parents,

I hope this finds you well and staying as sane as the confinement allows. I would imagine many of us will find the time to get to some long-neglected home projects in the coming days and weeks. A small silver lining.

I hope that online schooling continues to provide your children with purpose and meaningful learning opportunities. I believe that our teachers have developed a nearly-refined product, while we continue to tweak and try new things. Again, I wish to remind you that we've moved our half day of teacher collaboration to Wednesday, so tomorrow, for nearly all learners, instruction will be morning only, 9am to noon. Our ES learners will also experiment this week with "OFF line Friday Afternoon" and special projects from Art, Music, and PE teachers. Thank you to Dr. Buren and the ES team for piloting this new idea, which we hope proves a good change of pace.

I've been asked by a few parents what happens after we return to school? Will online learning still be available for students outside of Italy and Milan? We will not be able to offer the same form of online learning once we return to classrooms. Teachers are working full time to provide the current online schooling model, and once they are back in the classroom with living, breathing kids, they will be busy, full time, doing that. We will offer the support and learning opportunities we normally offer to sick students when they miss a day of school, but we will not be able to continue online schooling in its current form when we return to campus. 

As the calendar ticks by with us not at school, we are missing more than just our friends and live-teaching. ASM is missing many of the wonderful events that are the 'special sauce' for our children's school experiences. International trips have been canceled, sports tournaments, and much more. My nephew, who lives in Canada, just had a provincial swim tournament (for which he'd been training, arguably, for years) and a Choir tour to New Zealand cancelled in the same day. My brother reports that he was crushed, which I can well imagine. Our kids are going to lose more than school time this spring; they will also lose chances to participate in the events that, perhaps, were their favorite part of each school year. There will likely be some grieving and some mourning, some moodiness and maybe some anger. It is important, I think, that as parents, we recognize that our kids are losing some big wonderful events, some highlights, as this school closure eats more and more of our school year. 

We will work as a leadership team and team of educators to celebrate the return to normalcy when school reopens, and to do what we can, in the limited time we'll have left, to provide our students with a memorable and joyful final few weeks of school.

Final note of good news: two ASM Seniors have recently been admitted to the University of California at San Diego.  

Kind regards,

Wayne Rutherford

ASM Update, Closure Day 15, ASM Online Day 14, Lockdown Day 5

Dear Community,

Thomas Paine said in 1776 'these are the times that try mens' souls'.  He had a different crisis in mind when he penned those words, but our situation is a modern crisis, a pandemic, and a significant challenge for us all. It is trying to the souls of moms, dads, teachers, and students...but it is also an opportunity.

Week 3 of closure has seen several improvements to our online learning delivery, and I'd like to especially thank the Elementary teachers who have continued to evolve their practice each week, bringing in more face-to-face time, more connections, and I think overall a more comprehensive online schooling program. I hope you at home are keeping up with Mr. Witt's online workouts, and trying some Healthy Brain Food. Our Middle and High School teachers continue to maintain the pace of curriculum delivery, working hard to ensure that students are not significantly impacted by school closure in terms of our learning standards and their educational achievement.  A huge 'kudos' to all of our Teachers. Thanks, also to our Counselors, who have been working to promote Student Wellness in several ways via online engagements with students.

We know that the move to so much screen time has been a challenging adjustment. Next week, ES will pilot a 'screen free Friday afternoon' to try to reduce a bit students' on-screen time. This is an experiment, part of our constant evolution in this new environment, and we hope that it provides a chance for some different,  hands-on learning experiences for our students. We are working to try to find ways to also reduce screen time for our teachers, who--like  our students--are obliged to stay in front of  their machines as they delivery online schooling.

This was Week 3. We have three, or perhaps four more to go (hopefully, only three). Thus, it is--we hope-- a mid-point in this experience for ASM. We have learned a lot...a LOT....about online teaching and learning. ASM has established itself as a leader in Europe in delivering online learning, and again, thanks to our Tech Support team. I think that one of our biggest challenges is still about balance, in particular as the need to stay indoors has increased. Getting exercise, caring for one's personal wellness, socializing...all so important, so well facilitated by at-school schooling, and so much harder to do in small apartments and limited spaces. We hope you and your family are finding time to address these critical areas of wellness, using ASM resources or things you've developed on your own.

Another quick college admissions celebration, as one of our ASM seniors was admitted this week to the University of Edinburgh into their Faculty of Biomedical Sciences. Great work!

Have a relaxing weekend, put down the screens, get out on a walk (1 m apart, please), call a friend, and try to reflect on some of the many things we have to be grateful for, including our incredible ASM community.

Wayne Rutherford

Director

American School of Milan

ASM Update: ASM Online Day #12; School Closure Day #13

Dear ASM Parents,

Greetings and I hope you are holding up alright whereever you are. Here in Milan, the lockdown has really come into effect, and I can verify that supermarkets are making people stand in line outside to ensure that ‘safe distance’ is kept between customers inside the store. It reminds me a bit of 1974 in America: an oil crisis led to long lines to get gas, and I remember sitting in my mom’s gray Volvo stationwagon waiting for our turn. The oil crisis also led to some food shortage scares, and I also remember being at Prarie Market, a huge warehouse place outside of town, and pushing around a massive (it seemed to 7 year old me) warehouse sled with the biggest bags of essentials I’d ever seen. Fast forward 45 years and here we are in Milan, waiting in line for diminishing products. Thankfully, Italians seem to have produced (and kept for domestic consumption) plenty of wine...those shelves were still well-stocked!

Again, thank you for your flexibility and support as we head into what we now know will be a long haul with online learning and distance schooling. In week #3, we feel that some things are working quite well and will be sustainable through the duration of the closure. Other things, we know, we can still make better, and so you will continue to see tweaks in our delivery of online learning..changes for the better, we hope. I have said several times that we are ‘building this plane while we are flying it,’ and so we are cognizant of wanting to do our best (change and evolve), but also to have routines that you all can follow at home (be consistent). I believe that in the coming days, you’ll see patterns of instruction emerge that will hold through the closure.

One change: we will shift the half day of instruction from Mondays to Wednesdays to better meet the needs of teachers in their planning. Next Monday will be a full day of online schooling; Wednesday, March 18th, will be morning only  teaching and learning. Look to the Principals for any additions to the schedule update.

I’ve been asked several questions in the past few days, prompted by our imposed longer closure and my email to you on Sunday. I’ll answer a few of those here:

• Why do I think we’ll be closed until April 20th, if the current edict runs to the 3rd? We anticipate that the week after the 3rd (Easter Week, in which Italian schools only have a couple of days instruction) will likely be canceled. If it is not, then we will have classes. The week of April 13th, is our spring break which (if Easter week is closed) would lead us to a Monday, April 20, resumption of classes. We might be back on April 6th if Easter week is not added to the April 3 current school closure. 

• Why not cancel spring break and makeup classes then? That seems like a nice idea: makeup days. But several factors make that difficult and also unpalatable; it may, also for many of our learners, be unnecessary. Many of our teachers are doing an outstanding job keeping pace with the schedule of instruction and our curricular goals. While we know we are losing learning time for our youngest learners--for whom classroom socialization and specialized instruction are so important--many of our teachers report being on, or nearly on schedule, despite the closure. Another factor: families and teachers have vacation plans already scheduled for spring break. I think we’ll all need a break from school by then!

• Our IB preparation for seniors is going forward at a good pace. We are confident that most of our IB students’ exam preparation will not be affected by the closure. While we cannot fully replicate in-school learning online, our seniors are responsible, engaged learners and our IB teachers are highly skilled and working very hard. We feel quite positive about where we are with exam preparation. The IB Office, for its part, is presenting some degree of flexibility on assignment deadlines. The test dates themselves, however, remain fixed at this time. Conversations are ongoing, but I believe we will be safe to offer exams by their start date in early May.

• What about bus and activity refunds? We are looking into these questions and will be working to find an equitable solution to the question of compensation for lost activity sessions or unused bus time, though we must wait for the end of the school closure to know the extent of lost time.

• What is happening with upcoming school community events? We continue to look at the calendar and are trying to assess what can be done, what cannot, and what we will need to change. Many things on our calendar, including student performances and the International Night, require preparation and rehearsal...even if we can schedule all of the original performances, will we have sufficient time to prepare the performers? We will continue to review this question. 

There are lots of issues still to be decided or clarified, while teachers continue, each day, to deliver the best online learning experiences possible. To close on some positive notes, our seniors continue to receive college admissions news, and in the past week, we’ve heard of ASM senior’s being admitted to The University of Michigan; New York University, Shanghai; and Duke University’s Kunshan Campus--top schools for our outstanding seniors! Congratulations!

Finally, I’m pleased to share with your our wonderful ASM Counseling Team’s Wellness Challenge for Week 3: Click here to take the Challenge.

Wayne Rutherford
Director
American School of Milan

ASM School Closure Update, 8 March

All,

The Italian government yesterday announced an extension of school closures to April 3. (it seems quite likely, given Easter and our spring break, that we will actually not resume on-campus learning until April 20). Other aspects of the edict restrict movement to, from, and within Lombardia. This was unwelcome news, but we are in unprecedented times.

ASM faculty and staff will continue to work to deliver on-line schooling to all students as we have for the past two weeks. This and following Mondays will be half day (9-12pm) schooling, with teacher collaboration time in the afternoon. Tuesday-Friday we will provide full day online schooling. We will do our best to announce any future schedule modifications with some lead time. 

We have surveyed some of our students about their experiences thus far, and one of the challenges is the lack of social interaction that regular school--that being together on campus--provides. ASM has provided parents with access to a tool that can help connect you with your child's peers: the ClassList application. We hope that it will be helpful in providing you with contact information with your child's peers that can help you possibly set up a chance to get together in the park or, perhaps, virtually. 

I hope you will have the opportunity to enjoy today's good weather. 

Kind regards,

Wayne Rutherford
Director
American School of Milan

ASM Update: Online Learning Day #9; Closure Day #10

Greetings parents,

The sun is shining as I write this, trees are in bloom, and spring is in the air. I sincerely hope you and your children will get out and enjoy some greenery this weekend. The parks are, from what I've seen, full of people enjoying the weather and sunshine...when it shines. Physical activity and sunshine are so important for children.

The week at school has gone as well as I think we could hope. On Monday, we will again offer a half-day of online schooling and give the teachers the afternoon for collaboration. As we continue to work to improve our online delivery, there will be some changes and attempts at finding ways for the most effective provision of online learning. Look forward to communications from your children's teachers and Principals about any changes. I am in contact with peers around the world who are also wrestling with the challenges of school closure. I was involved in a Zoom conversation today with 55 school leaders sharing learnings and 'what's working well'. I was able to relay these ideas on to our Leadership team here, and some of those ideas may help us improve what we are doing here at ASM. I've also continued to represent ASM with by sharing some of our learnings here with the larger community of international schools. 

The chance of a longer closure seems to be growing, but we will continue to keep our fingers crossed that we might be open again following the expiration of the current closure edict (which would mean March 16th)...

As the numbers of infections and fatalities continue to grow in Italy and around the world, I continue to try to put the COVID-19 experience into perspective. This article, shared with me by a colleague working at a school in Poland helped with that....we have much that we could do to increase our longevity. 

I wish you all the best for a pleasant weekend.

Wayne Rutherford
Director
American School of Milan

ASM Online Day #7, COVID Closure Update Day #8

Greetings ASM Parents,

It appears that the government has decided to extend school closure for another week until at least March 15. Not great news, as we would all like to be back in classrooms, but I hope that this information can provide you with some vision on your near-term planning. 

ASM will continue to deliver our curriculum and provide online learning through next week (and through whatever the term of school closure). 

I am aware that some of the initial excitement around the online learning has worn off as we work our way through week #2. The instruction for younger children requires a lot of parent supervision, and we know that is a particular strain on working parents. The online environment has drastically limited social interaction among our students, and that is affecting many of our students. The work that our teachers are doing is demanding and time consuming, and that is also adding to the stress. We will be sending out a few surveys (I think teachers have already sent out a couple) in the coming days to try to gather data that will help us improve delivery and ensure that we are doing the best work we can in these challenging circumstances. I think our teachers are doing an AMAZING job, and I know that most of our kids, too, are doing their very best to make this work. 

Thank you for your continued support. We sincerely look forward to having everyone back on campus soon....we hope!

Wayne Rutherford

Some helpful and useful articles:
On the importance of outdoor play: 
https://www.parentingscience.com/benefits-of-outdoor-play.html 

One of our own parents on COVID-19 in Milan:
https://easymilano.com/staying-calm-coronavirus-in-milan/

Set in the US and US public schools, but an child-friendly explanation (cartoon) of the virus here

ASM Online/CoVID-19 Weekend Update

Greetings, ASM parents,

This week will be another week of online learning for ASM students, in accordance with the government proclamation this past weekend. We are hopeful that we will be able to resume on-campus teaching and learning next week, but must await the government's approval to do so. 

This week, we will be working to assess the educational impact of our online learning experiment. We'd like to try to understand how much learning has taken place at home vs what teachers had planned for these two weeks at school. We'd like to understand how much time and learning has been 'lost' due to the different delivery and learning model. We'd also like to try to capture what 'additional learnings' have come with learning from home: what have students learned about themselves as learners? What additional skills have they developed managing their learning somewhat independently from home? What new tech skills have they mastered? We hypothesize that, while some time has been lost, other gains have been made. A challenge to assess, but we will attempt to do so. 

As long as the week remains in a steady state, I will not be writing each evening. Expect a note from me towards the end of the week, but I will curtail my daily messages as we seem to have found our pace online and we know that we'll be doing "ASM Online" or the remainder of the week.

In case you haven't seen it, a few articles covering ASM's work this past week:
https://excellencemagazine.luxury/2020/03/american-school-of-milan-online-learning-in-times-of-crisis/ 

and 
https://www.aaie.org/cf_enotify/view.cfm?n=604 

We are leaders in Europe, with several schools asking us about what we've done and how we've done it, as they look at the possibility of closing and needing to move online. ASM Leads!

Have a good evening,

Wayne Rutherford 

ASM Online/CoVID-19 Weekend Update

All,

Greetings and I hope you were able to disconnect from news and screens this weekend. 

The Lombardy government has announced that schools will be closed for this coming week, so ASM will continue with online learning. As per my Friday email, Monday will be a half day of instruction for students, from 9am to noon, with teachers having time to plan and collaborate in the afternoon. Tuesday through Friday, we will deliver full days of online learning. 

It was good to learn that some other states near us have allowed for schools to re-open this week (Wednesday for our peers at IS Turin) and so we are optimistic that we can reopen our doors next Monday, but of course, we must wait for official notification, which I anticipate will not come until later in the week. 

Kind regards,
Wayne Rutherford

Coronavirus Closure Day #5; Online ASM Day #4

Dear Parents,

Well, we made it through the week! Thank you all for your support and for supporting your children's learning through this week's new instructional 'ecosystem' and our online learning platform. Really, we have done so very well. I do appreciate all the emails of support. 

We don't know what will happen next week and won't know until the Lombardia government chooses to make its next pronouncement on schools. I intend to send out an email on Sunday with an update, provided that we have news from the Government about school closure. Please take some time with your children to really unplug this weekend. It has been an intense and demanding week. Enjoy some time offline, get outside, get some physical activity.

There are two scenarios we can anticipate for Monday:

If Lombardia says schools are open Monday

1. ASM will be open! 
2. I am presuming that the Lombardia government will issue some criteria regarding who should come to school and who should stay home. 
   1. We ask that you observe any government established criteria for school attendance or self quarantine, 
   2. We ask that you, as parents, ensure your child is fully healthy before sending him or her to school. Please take your child's temperature before putting them on the bus or dropping off at school. Please do not send children who have a fever, a cough, an upset stomach, etc.
   3. The CDC rates Italy as a '2' in terms of health risk due to coronavirus. We ask that if you have traveled to a country rated by the CDC as a '3' or more, that you not come to school until the end of your 14 day quarantine. List and ratings are here.
3. Activities and Sports will run after school as per usual, depending on Coach's ability to be here.
4. If we are open, we plan to discontinue our online learning program. If a child is away from school, the usual sick-day process of getting missed work would go into effect, with the usual extended deadlines. 
5. FYI: the salad bar will not be operating the first day we are back.
6. We will all be happy to be back

If Lombardia says schools are closed Monday

1. Students will continue to work from home; school closed
2. Mondays will become 'half days' with instruction online from 9am to noon. Teachers will use the afternoons for much-needed planning and collaboration time. Principals and/or teachers will send more information about the specifics of this schedule to you.
3. If we remain closed, there will be online teaching for the rest of the week as per this week.
4. If we are still closed Monday, March 9, we will again have a half day of instruction and a half day of teacher meetings. 

Further notes:

1. We are having a 'Deep Clean' on campus tomorrow....super hygienic cleaning and disinfecting of the whole facility.   
2. Buses will also be clean and clear to ride, with extra cleaning and driver health screenings in place.
3. The deadline for re-enrollment will be pushed back to March 10th (please do go online and fill out the form!) and the penalty for late re-registration will be pushed back as well. 

Again, thank you for your flexibility, support, and feedback during this unusual week. While our online delivery has not been perfect, this was really a nearly flawless move from regular to online schooling. I could not have imagined it going this well. The smoothness of this move is a credit to our hard working teachers, Administrators, Counselors and especially Tech Team.

Have a lovely weekend,

Wayne