St. Thomas Aquinas Distance Learning Program

Dear Parents:

We know many of you and your children are excited about getting started with their SAVVAS Realize accounts – we are, too!

Before we can “go live” we need you to do the following:

SAVVAS REALIZE ACCOUNTS – Join Google Classroom First!

Please log into your child’s St. Thomas Aquinas DLP email account, review any emails you may have missed, and be sure to accept any invitations you received to join google classrooms.

You can also access Google Classroom directly with your child’s STADLP email account by going to classroom.google.com and accepting all the classroom invitations from there.

This is the most important step before your teacher can connect you to Realize!

SAVVAS REALIZE BOOKS

We have provided hard copies of books for grades K-3 but families wishing to supplement the digital copies with hard copies for grades 4-8 can now order them online!

Go to: pearsonprivateschools.com
School: St Thomas Aquinas Virtual School
City/ZipCode: Brooklyn, 11215

Blessings,

Manuela Adsuar-Pizzi
Maria Lamattina

Download this letter in PDF

Dear Parents and Guardians,

We are most appreciative of your patience and understanding as we continue to refine the St. Thomas Aquinas Distance Learning Program.

The challenges we have shared with you previously, continue to be addressed and we are making progress each day. The daily communications from the leadership team provides you with answers to questions raised by parents during the day. We will continue this process of communicating with you throughout the academic year.

Our leadership team of Mrs. Pizzi and Dr. Lamattina continue to work collaboratively with faculty and students. We have adopted a co-principal model, which will allow direct oversight for Grades K to 4 and Grades 5 to 8. In the co-principal model, the leadership team will work together to address student matters, curriculum, policy, and procedures.

Dear Parents:

Welcome to Week Two!

Although many of the pressing issues we faced last week have been resolved, there are still some concerns we’d like to address.

Devices & Materials 
As we are still waiting for the delivery of devices and wish to avoid asking parents to make two separate trips to pick-up materials, we will post an updated schedule on the school website on Friday, October 9.

Realize & iReady
We know that many of you have either not yet received login information for Realize or have received that information and tried to login without success. Our team is working on this issue and we hope to have it resolved by mid-week.

Teacher Absences
As with any school, there are times when – for a variety of reasons – teachers will be unable to work. On those occasions, learning will be completely asynchronous, with assignments posted by the regular classroom teacher and attendance taken via forms that will be posted on the class website.

Dear Parents:

What an exciting voyage this past week has been! Thank you all for your patience and understanding. 

As we look forward, we want to update you on a couple of topics:

Devices and Materials
Although we will be posting an updated schedule for pick-up of books, we have been notified that our shipment of devices has again been delayed. In the meantime, we are exploring ways to provide some temporary devices for families without them. Please check the website for updated information.

Religion
Our Middle School Religion teacher will begin working with students this month. He will be informing each 5^th through 8^thgrade class of their schedule, so be on the lookout! We are also making arrangements for virtual mass, prayer services, and dedications to the Rosary for the month of October. Please note, while we continue to set up the virtual religion curriculum materials, students continue to receive daily religious instruction and prayer with their homeroom teachers in K-4.

Dear Parents:

As you all know, class size in a virtual environment is larger than a physical classroom. To ensure that our teachers maximize their instructional time and use their out-of-meeting class time productively (reviewing student work, planning and preparing for instruction), we ask you to please avoid sending them emails during the school day and to please avoid sending repeat emails as this floods the inbox making it very difficult to efficiently reply. 

If you have an academic concern specific to your student, feel free to reach out to your teachers by email, expecting that they cannot respond during class time, nor in late evening hours. 

Your first stop for any other concerns such as materials and devices, technology, Google Classroom links or codes, etc. should be the STA Website: https://stthomasaquinasbq.org/.

Dear Parents,

Today, we received a number of inquiries about when and where you might pick-up your children’s books and devices. A schedule for next week should be posted on the school website by Friday evening.   

Many families have also expressed concerns about Religion classes and when they might begin. We are in the process of finalizing the implementation of a religious education program specifically designed for virtual learning and anticipate such instruction commencing very soon. Students continue to pray together in class daily. 

Additionally, some families have wondered about Attendance – especially those whose children were unable to log in to classes at the beginning of the week. We want to assure you that NO children will be penalized for not attending classes these first few days of school. We want to also mention that we are exploring various methods for verifying attendance going forward.

A reminder…if you’re still experiencing problems with email, log ins, passwords, etc., please visit the school website and follow the ticketing process you’ll find there. We have also supplied a link for you here: https://stthomasaquinasbq.org/technology-support/. 

In fact, you will find that the school website may be the fastest, most efficient way for you to receive answers to many questions you may have.

Have a wonderful evening!

Regards,

Ms. Pizzi, Principal
Dr. Lamattina, Assistant Principal

Dear Parents,

From what we’ve heard and observed on Tuesday, it seems students experienced less problems than they did yesterday when trying to join Google Classroom meetings.

We also realize that many families are still facing login challenges and feeling that their concerns are not being addressed as readily as desired. To rectify that situation, we’ve worked with our Technology Department to develop a ticketing process. For the most part, parents who used that system already have had their issues resolved.

For any technology-related questions or problems , please visit the school’s website (stthomasaquinasbq.org) and click on “For Parents – Technology Support.” You will find the ticketing process explained there. You can find direct access here. Understandably frustrated by login problems, many parents are sending multiple emails to the info@stthomasaquinasbq.org address and even copying several others on their emails. Although the intent may be to derive a faster response, the result may be quite the opposite.

The distribution of the instructional materials and tech devices is the next step in the full implementation of the Saint Thomas Aquinas Distance Learning Program.

At the present time, we are still waiting for delivery of the tech devices. 

As a result, the schedule below, only pertains to the picking-up of the instructional materials, for students in Kindergarten through Grade 3. 

Dear Parents:

Thank you all for your patience and effort in this, our first day of school! We recognize that there were a number of “glitches” in today’s sessions, and we’d like to address some of the concerns we heard from you:

Not Receiving Emails/Login Information

Some of you may have changed your email or indicated a preference that might not align with the information in our system. If you have already activated your Rediker account, you can update your contact information. 

If you haven’t received any emails with account information, please remember to send an EMAIL VERIFICATION with your preferred email address to: info@stthomasaquinasbq.org 

Having Difficulty Logging In

Please visit the Technology Support page for relevant contact information.

Having Questions Re Device/Book Pick-up

Please see links below for details on Cohort sections and schedules:

• Sections for all, including schedules for grades 5+
• K-4, Schedule 1
• K-4, Schedule 2
• Fifth Grade Cohorts
• Middle School Cohorts All

For help with technical support or accessing Google Classrooms, please enter a support ticket: https://stthomasaquinasbq.on.spiceworks.com/portal/tickets