We believe this is the best public health decision — for our staff, for our students, and for our families. We also know that vaccines save lives, and that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective.  We will support our current unvaccinated staff members and our student athletes through their next steps. We believe this decision brings an important additional layer of protection to our community and will continue to review the best strategies to keep us all safe. As always, we will keep you posted as we update our processes.

All student-athletes over the age of 12, must be fully vaccinated by December 13, 2021 to be eligible to practice or compete in school-based extracurricular athletics.  And though Mayor Bowser mandated the vaccine for staff and student-athletes over the age of 12, we strongly encourage all eligible individuals receive the COVID-19 Vaccine. 

Next Steps for Students Who are Eligible to Receive the COVID-19 Vaccine (12+):

• Sign up to receive the COVID-19 Vaccine. To continue to support our staff, students, and families in becoming vaccinated against COVID-19, we will host our next vaccine clinic on Friday, October 1, from 4 – 6 p.m. At the clinic, participants will receive the FDA-approved Pfizer vaccine. You can sign up here. For students who attend, they will receive a $25 gift card for each dose, and be entered in a raffle to win an Apple watch or an Oculus VR system. You can also find a full list of free, walk-up vaccination sites here. 
• Submit your student’s vaccination card to your school’s front office staff. If your student has received the COVID-19 vaccine, be sure to contact a member of your campus office staff to submit the proof of vaccination. If you or your student have already shared a copy of their vaccination card, please confirm with the front office that the card has been logged appropriately.

Vaccines are critical to protecting ourselves and each other, and together with our other practices, we are successfully minimizing the spread of COVID-19. Thank you to everyone — students, staff, and families — for their commitment and participation. From arrival procedures, health screenings,  to mask-wearing and more, these practices keep us all safe, and provide students full access to our educational program. 

You can view the guidelines in English HERE.

You can view the guidelines in Spanish HERE.

Thank you for your continued partnership as we work together to keep our entire community safe.

Audi Field is a Mobile Only Venue. To gain entry to the venue you must do so via your mobile device. For information on how to manage your ticket inventory, and how guests without a smartphone will be able to enter, please read below. 

How do I access my ticket(s)?

• Visit https://am.ticketmaster.com/audifield/my-events from your computer, tablet or mobile device and log in with your Ticketmaster email address and password. You must log in with the same email address you used to create your Graduation Ticket account. Graduates will input their E.L. Haynes email.  If you have forgotten your password, click “Forgot Password?”. Once logged into your account, tap the event tile for your graduation ceremony.

How do I transfer my ticket(s)?

• Once you log into your account and select your graduation ceremony, you will see the option to transfer your guest tickets. Please note that tickets for the graduates themselves will not be transferrable, but the tickets for guests are. To transfer, simply click “transfer” and enter the first name, last name, and email address of who the ticket should go to. 

Transfer Via Desktop:

Transfer via Mobile:

Transfer sounds tricky, can I just screenshot my tickets and text them to my guests?

• No. Audi Field utilizes SafeTix, or Rotating Barcodes, with their mobile tickets, meaning the barcode changes every 15 seconds. The barcode that you screenshot today will not be valid for entry on the day of the event, and your guest will be denied entry into the venue.

What happens when I transfer my ticket? 

• Once you enter your guests first name, last name and email address they will receive an email saying tickets have been sent to them, and they’ll be asked to follow the steps in the email to claim. Once they claim their ticket, it will move off of your account and on to theirs. Should your guests have problems accessing their tickets on the day of the event, if they come to the Services window with a photo ID that matches the name on their ticket account, we will be able to help them get access to the venue. Only guests with tickets in their name will be permitted access to the venue. If you choose to send your tickets to “John Doe”, and then “Peter Smith” comes to the window saying “I was just told to show up and you can help me”, Peter Smith will be denied entry to the venue. When you transfer tickets, you are letting us know who you want to attend the ceremony; only those names will be granted access.

Will the person I transfer a ticket to need an Audi Field Account? 

• Yes, in order to accept the ticket transfer your guest must log into their Audi Field Account. If they do not have an account, they can create one using their email address and a password of their choosing. 

One of my guests does not have a smart phone, how will they be able to enter the venue? 

Will they be traveling to the venue with another guest who does have a smart phone?

• Yes, they will travel to Audi Field with another guest who does have a smartphone. 
• Please transfer their tickets to whoever they are traveling to Audi Field with. Let’s say your Grandma doesn’t have a smartphone, but she is coming to Audi Field with your Uncle who does. Transfer two tickets to your Uncle. On the day of the event he will have two tickets on his account, scanning one ticket for your Grandma, and the other for himself.

No, they will travel to Audi Field by themself.

• Do they have an email address? 
• If your guest has an email address, please transfer a ticket to them. They can log into their account via a computer or tablet to claim their ticket, and then visit the Services window on the day of the event with a photo ID that matches the name on their ticket account. 

Why should my guests save tickets to their mobile wallet? 

• Saving tickets to your digital wallet before arriving at Audi Field ensures you can access your ticket should you lose wireless or WiFi service. It will also prevent you from needing to log into your account to pull up your ticket while standing in line. 
• Step-by-step instructions on how to save tickets to your Apple Wallet
• Step-by-step instructions on how to save tickets to your Android Google Pay

I’m still confused on how to log into my account, transfer tickets, or save to my mobile wallet

• Please email events@dcunited.com and make sure to include “Graduation Tickets” in the subject line. 

Para obtener esta información en español, haga clic aquí.

We are committed to ensuring the health and safety of our entire community. Testing is just one of the many strategies we will use to combat the spread of COVID-19. Paired with daily health screenings, mandatory mask wearing, social distancing, air filtration, and deep cleaning, we are ready to welcome our students back. If you have any questions regarding COVID-19 testing, or any of the health and safety measures at our schools, you should contact Kristin Yochum, Senior Director of Operations (kyochum@elhaynes.org or 202-667-4446).

To learn more, click here.

We are excited to release our 2021-2022 School Year Calendar. The first day of the 2021-2022 School Year is August 30, 2021. As we previously shared, due to the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, we prioritized coordinating our calendar to the DC Public School Calendar (DCPS) in order to stay aligned with city-wide decisions in another unique school year. You will see some distinct changes to this school year’s calendar.

E.L. Haynes will fully reopen to in-person learning on August 30, 2021. We will provide an in-person, five-day-a-week schedule for all students in the fall. Students are expected to attend school in-person full time.

For a brief snapshot of important dates and information, click here. To view the entire calendar, click here. 

Beginning April 26, we will expand in-person opportunities at each campus. This email outlines our plans for each campus, as well as other critical information for this summer and the 2021-2022 School Year. There is a lot of information in this email, so please read it carefully. We will also have multiple opportunities to review this information at campus-based and cross-campus family forums. We will also keep all of this information on our website. 

Our Quarter 4 Decision

BEGINNING APRIL 26, E.L. HAYNES WILL EXPAND IN-PERSON OPPORTUNITIES. THEY WILL VARY AT EACH CAMPUS AND FOR EACH STUDENT. 

Each school plan is made up of two strategies that reflect what families, students, and staff wanted in our recent Q4 Planning Survey, as well as the planning done by school teams. At each campus, there is one strategy that targets specific students and one that targets all interested students. Remember that all in-person opportunities are optional for your students.

• Elementary School
  • We will expand in-person grade-level play and social opportunities for ALL students. Every student will have access to 45 minutes of in-person play with classmates every week. 
  • We will offer in-person instruction four days per week for invited students. In grades PreK-4 through 4, we will facilitate at least one classroom on site for in-person instruction. We are exploring appropriate options for Pre-K3, given where we are in the current school year.

• Middle School
  • We will launch 2 x LIONS classrooms per grade for invited students. These classrooms are virtual learning spaces, where students have a supervised environment to complete their virtual learning. Due to current limitations in cohort size and cohort mixing, they are the least disruptive to current student and teacher schedules. 
  • We will launch structured afternoon activities and athletics for all interested students up to three times per week. 

• High School
  • We will launch 2 x LIONS classrooms per grade for invited students. These classrooms are virtual learning spaces, where students have a supervised environment to complete their virtual learning. Due to current limitations in cohort size and cohort mixing, they are the least disruptive to current student and teacher schedules. 
  • We will launch structured afternoon activities and athletics for all interested students up to three times per week. 

Our Process

Since January, we have engaged many members of our community to best plan for Quarter 4. We used information from our Q4 Planning Survey and from our campus-based working groups to develop these plans. 

Our Rationale

• Our decisions and plans reflect our commitment to equity. We know that this pandemic has impacted all of us differently, and has impacted some members of our community more than others. Our decisions reflect this reality, including thinking both how we will prioritize students for in-person opportunities and how we will support staff with different needs and flexibilities. 

• Our plans reflect key data from our Q4 Planning Survey. Many students, families, and staff participated in this survey. Your answers informed the planning of our working groups, and in some cases identified clear preferences for in-person programming. 

• Our plans reflect the unique needs of each campus. Our plans consider the balance required to provide what our students need, while minimizing the impact on the quality of our virtual program, as well as the impact on our campus schedules and staffing. 

• Our roadmap to returning to full in-person instruction will be grounded in health and safety. As we move forward through Quarter 4, into this summer, and the 2021-2022 School Year, health and safety will continue to guide our decisions for our community. Our plans reflect current DC Health guidelines. As guidance changes, access to the vaccine becomes more prevalent, and we learn more about the impact of COVID variants, our plans will change. Given where we are in the school year, these changes will be reflected in our plans for summer and next school year.

SUMMER 2021

We are committed to providing three weeks of summer programming, most of which will take place from Monday, June 28 through Friday, July 16. This programming will vary at each campus, and will be a mix of in-person and virtual learning experiences. By April 9, we will provide additional information for families, including how to sign up.

FALL 2021

We will offer in-person instruction at all three campuses for all students AND we will also offer a 100% virtual instructional model for families who wish to remain virtual for the Fall semester. We are excited to share more information with you in the coming weeks. 

CALENDAR 2021-2022

This week, we finalized our calendar for the 2021-2022 School Year. You can see the full calendar HERE, and a snapshot of highlights HERE. Our first day of school is August 30, 2021. As we said earlier this year, there is no Fall Intersession next year. We have a break planned for February, but no Intersession program is currently planned during this time.

• Our calendar increases instructional time to support academic recovery and social emotional learning. We will align our school days across all three campuses, including full day instructional days on Fridays at the elementary and middle schools. We included three dedicated days for parent-teacher conferences and will continue to provide multiple options for families to schedule these conversations. 

• This calendar reflects your feedback in our planning survey, and there are tradeoffs. We kept Thanksgiving Break as a full week, shortened Winter Break slightly, and brought back the February break to more closely align with the DC Public Schools calendar. 

NEXT STEPS & OPPORTUNITIES TO DISCUSS / ASK QUESTIONS

Over the remainder of the school year, and into the summer and fall, we will continue to engage you in our planning. Here are some of the important next steps and ways to hear more.

• Join a Cross-Campus Family Forum. You will have the opportunity to discuss the plans and decisions during our cross-campus Family Forums on Thursday, March 25, from 6 p.m. – 7 p.m. or Friday, March 26, from 8 a.m. – 9 a.m. We will be sending out ZOOM log-in information early next week.
• Join a campus-based Family Forum. You will have the opportunity to discuss the plans and decisions in a campus-based setting. We will be sending out ZOOM log-in information prior to the events.
  • Elementary School: Tuesday, March 30, from 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
  • Middle School: Thursday, April 1, from 6 p.m. – 7 p.m.
  • High School: Wednesday, March 31, from 5 p.m. – 6 p.m.
• Look out for more information from your campus teams in the coming weeks. 

Thank you. I know this is a lot of information. We will provide many more details to you soon, and will answer all of your questions. If you have any questions or immediate concerns, you can contact me or your child’s principal directly.

• 1 linear function
• 1 radical function
• 1 quadratic function
• 1 polynomial function
• 1 rational function
• 1 exponential function

The goal was to create an environment that blends education and creativity. 

Take a look below to see all the student drawings. To download the entire coloring book, click here.

“… classrooms are more than just places where students master complex equations or learn to read, they are for play, social interaction, and other social-emotional development.”

Hilary Darilek, Chief Executive Officer

Chairman Mendelson, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this discussion on the effect the COVID-19 pandemic has had on our students’ learning and its impact on our community. We especially appreciate the opportunity to provide testimony on what we’ve learned this year and on our planning process for the remainder of the school year, this summer, and for next school year. E.L. Haynes serves 1,190 students in Pre-K through 12th grade, and while our campuses are in Wards 1 and 4, our students represent all 8 wards. We are tremendously proud of the work we have done in this difficult time — how we engage all of our students in virtual learning, how we support our staff and our families through an unprecedented school year, and how we leverage our time and our calendar.

Our Transition to Virtual Learning

In March 2020, like many of our colleagues around the city and country, we transitioned to “home learning.” Using a combination of packets, YouTube videos, Instagram, and one-on-one meetings, our instructional staff creatively worked with our students to close out the 2019-2020 School Year. That summer, we transitioned quickly — making the decision to move to a 1:1 technology model — purchasing computers for every student and hotspots for students who need them, and launching a new online learning management system. Besides investing in the hardware and software to ensure a successful learning experience, we provided professional development for our staff, technology support for our students and families, and significantly increased the size of our tech support team.

This plan came with significant investment — more than $700,000 to ensure that 100% of E.L. Haynes students have access to a device and hot spots (as needed), as well new platforms to support virtual instruction. This was in addition to the more than $70,000 we spent providing each student all the educational materials they need to succeed at home — including pencils, paper, workbooks, books, calculators.

We are proud of the virtual learning program that we developed. We believe we provide one of the best virtual programs in the city, and this is because of our teachers. They adapted quickly and continue to focus on how to build new skills to effectively teach in virtual classrooms. And they focus on connection and relationships with our students and families. Their hard work and creativity, and the support of our campus leadership and staff, enabled many successes this year. While important, the computers and hotspots are near meaningless without the caring, thoughtful, adults supporting our students each and every day.

This belief is supported by our January 2021 survey of families and students. Our families continue to indicate high satisfaction with our virtual program (78%). This level of satisfaction can be directly related to 96% of families and 86% of students saying that they have the tech, tools, and resources needed to be (or to support) a successful learner. Further, 92% of families said they feel confident supporting their student’s use of technology for learning.

COVID-19 and Its Impact on Our Students’ Learning

Across the country, there are multiple sources saying that students are experiencing learning loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic. E.L. Haynes’ data paints a much more complicated picture. In order to best understand the impact the building closures and our subsequent transition to virtual learning has had on our students, we draw on a variety of data: our students’ performance in class and on formal assessments, attendance, assignment completion, and through teacher observations.

Overall, we’ve seen increases in some of our assessment results across grades, but we believe our data is mixed or unreliable. For instance, fewer students took the Achievement Network (ANET) at every grade level, meaning our results could skew higher because based on historic trends, the students who did not complete the assessment are also some of our students who have struggled with formal assessments while in-person or are disengaged in virtual learning. Further, we saw improvements in some grades and subgroups, but decreases in others. Given how complicated interpreting these results are, we need to include other data in our analysis.

In the absence of reliable diagnostic data, teacher expertise and observations are even more important. A teacher’s ongoing review of student work and their progress on grade-level standards, and their assessment of a students’ social-emotional needs provide a deeper analysis into student performance.

How we engage parents in their students’ academic program is also critical to student success. To this point, we have seen very positive outcomes — 84% of high school, and 76% of middle school students have had a parent or guardian participate in at least two progress meetings this year to discuss how their child is doing.

Because of what we learned in our virtual classrooms, we cannot say for certain that all or even most of our students have experienced learning loss to the extent that others report. But, what we do know is that classrooms are more than just places where students master complex equations or learn to read, they are for play, social interaction, and other social-emotional development. And, while we believe that our virtual classrooms are meeting the academic needs of our students, we also believe that providing access to robust in-person opportunities will be critical to the long term emotional and physical wellbeing of our students.

Shifts in Our High School Schedule Drive Student Engagement and Achievement

E.L. Haynes works hard to engage our high school students through a combination of in-person experiences and a strategically designed course schedule.

At the beginning of the school year, we reimagined our high school student schedules to better engage them and encourage success. We shifted to a block schedule to focus on four core classes each semester, instead of the normal seven daily classes. This enabled students to focus on a smaller number of courses each semester. We also intentionally adjusted our daily schedule, making two important changes: we added a second daily advisory period, and we host daily office hours. The additional advisory period allows students to have another opportunity to connect with their peers and their advisor, and supports students to stay on track in real time. Office hours provide a space for students to receive individualized or small group instruction.

We currently offer limited in-person programming for high school students, where they are piloting our LIONS classrooms, which are our equivalent to a DCPS CARES classroom. We also host some 9th grade advisory days for priority students.

As we reflect on our high school students’ data, we also see some mixed results. We look at which students in each grade level are on-track to graduate (passing courses and meeting other graduation milestones). Our seniors are ahead of last year’s seniors at this point in the school year (86% for this year’s seniors vs. 80% at this same time last year). On the other hand, our 9th graders are less on track than 9th graders were at this same time last year (78% vs. 88%).

We are using this to plan for what our students need. As I mentioned previously, this is why we will continue to host some 9th grade advisory days for priority students. We will also use our summer to support students who are off-track. Each summer we provide credit recovery programming for students in all grade levels. We are also planning for what a 9th to 10th grade summer bridge program could offer our students. We have not yet met many of our current 9th graders in person, and we believe we could foster relationships as well as support them in passing their 9th grade courses and enter their 10th grade year on track.

Overall, we do not have evidence of wide-spread learning loss at our high school, but we do have evidence that some of our lower-performing students are struggling in the virtual learning environment. There could also be unmeasured losses across all of our campuses in areas where we aren’t collecting data, specifically science, social studies, extracurriculars, and social-emotional development.

Summer Programming and Our Extended-Year Calendar Will Be a Critical Tool

E.L. Haynes was founded as the first year-round school in Washington, DC and has, since 2004, leveraged some form of an extended-year calendar. We do this by starting earlier in August, using breaks and intersession programming throughout the school year, and then hosting three weeks of intersession over the summer.

In early January, we decided to align with DC Public Schools’ start date for the 2021-2022 School Year (August 31, 2021) in anticipation of another unique school year, and to ensure we have equitable access to the city-wide resources that will support re-opening for our city’s largest LEA. Because of this decision, we will modify our normal extended year model for the next school year (the second year in a row we’ve made this decision).

We see the use of our calendar and time as an important way to support our students’ learning and to help address the gaps we see in our data — which students need additional support, when, and how. Further, our intersession programming provides an opportunity for students to participate in enrichment activities, build relationships with other students, and explore topics from robotics and coding to art and dance, and more. This is why we are committed to offering three weeks of programming this summer, extended learning time next year, and planning to return to our extended-year calendar in 2022-2023.

Our Community and Their Input Will Drive Our Academic Quarter 4 Plans

In mid-January, E.L. Haynes announced that we would begin planning for a hybrid model — a mix of in-person and virtual learning — beginning April 19, at the start of Academic Quarter 4, for the remainder of this school year. E.L. Haynes is committed to planning for what is possible to stand-up a hybrid model at each campus in order to provide more in-person opportunities for students and families.

Our goal in this planning process is to be as inclusive as possible, welcoming diverse perspectives to the table as we explore what is best for our entire community.

The diverse voices of our community are key to our decision-making process. We will collect feedback from our stakeholders through multiple ways — surveys, family and staff forums, and campus-based working groups. These groups will talk through multiple options, discuss trade offs, review data on what our students need, and consider student, family, and staff perspectives. They will make recommendations, and E.L. Haynes leadership will announce a final decision by March 19.

As many in this room know, planning for a hybrid learning model is challenging. We need to balance the wishes and needs of families and students, the capacity of our staff, all while considering the equity issues at the center of each of these decisions. And, we believe that in-person opportunities are critical for our students.

How We Could Use the City’s Support

E.L. Haynes would like to thank the DC Council and the Mayor for their ongoing support of schools in this very difficult time. Recovering from the impact and trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic will take years. We believe that with timely access to the vaccine and consistent and sustained investments to the UPSFF and the Facilities Allotment it will help ensure that schools can best support all students this year, next year, and into the future.

Timely access to the vaccine. Thank you to Mayor Bowser for making the vaccine available to our staff who support our limited in-person experiences, and thank you to the DC Alliance for supporting its distribution among charter schools. But, in order for us to reopen safely, our staff would need timely access to the vaccine, and a clear timeline for when it will be available to our entire staff community.

Consistent and sustained investments to the UPSFF and Facilities Allotment. In addition to our investment in technology infrastructure to support virtual learning, we have also invested extensively in preparing our buildings and facilities for our return to in-person learning. We are not alone in these significant expenditures this year. Though we have had access to federal government support in these difficult times, these immediate and short term infusions of resources do not help us plan for the long-term work that will be necessary to support our students as we all recover in the years to come. It would be our hope that the Council would continue to support charter schools through a 4% increase to the UPSFF and a 2% increase to the facilities allotment. This ongoing support will help schools plan more effectively as well as make the investments necessary to support students in the long term.

We’ve made critical choices to balance the priorities set forth in Year 1 of our strategic plan with the realities of creating a new virtual instructional program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As we stacked our goals for our students and teachers for the 2020-21 school year against our strategic plan Year 1 priorities, and our finite resources (i.e. time, money, capacity) we honed in on these Big Goals for SY2020-21.  

• Exploring How We Maximize Our PK-12 Superpower (Academics)
  • Instructional Vision: This summer, we launched eight cross-campus working groups in key content areas to identify opportunities and make recommendations on how to best align our students’ instructional experience and make shifts to our special education and English Learner programming. To date, we’ve shared a draft of the revised Instructional Vision with our school leaders (before Winter Break) and will continue to get input from our community through Spring 2021. 

• Graduate Profile: Our graduate profile is our north star for the skills, knowledge, and habits we want our graduates to possess as community members, learners, and leaders. This fall we started the foundational work to create a map of Pre-K-12 staff and student “look-fors” that cultivate student growth toward fulfilling the graduate profile. Our goal is to launch a pilot graduate profile measurement system with seniors this spring in an Action Civics pilot. 

• ED Tech Strategy: This summer we transitioned to a 1:1 model to ensure that every student had the technology necessary to meaningfully engage in our virtual learning program. We’ve made significant investments in equipment and software and learned a lot about what is possible in a virtual world. Our charge for this year is to conduct an audit of our current technology (our devices and our software programs) and identify which elements of our virtual instructional program should become a staple of our academic program. 

• Student Culture, Signature Experiences, and Student Life: We know that our instructional program is just one facet of our students’ Pre-K-12 experience at E.L. Haynes, and our goal this year is to better understand our current student experience and our current offerings at every grade level from student culture to signature experiences to student life. 

• Creating a Great, Sustainable, and Inclusive Place to Work (Talent and Organizational Development)
  • Recruitment Season is Underway: We’ve made shifts to how we recruit and hire new talent to the E.L. Haynes community to center equity in the decisions we make about who will join our team. 

Launched a search for the first E.L. Haynes Staff Trustee. In January, we announced that the E.L. Haynes Board of Trustees would open one of their 15 seats to a current instructional team member. The application process is currently open to all E.L. Haynes instructional staff and the Trustees plan to identify the staff trustee later this Spring.

Their vision is to build a community that has the knowledge, resources, and relationships to support each other and their children so that all children achieve success and belong to a connected, inclusive, and multicultural community.

​Any E.L. Haynes Elementary School community member who is interested in connecting with and supporting one another is a part of ROAR.

​Want to get involved? Email elhaynesfamilies@gmail.com to learn more or to be added to their WhatsAp! Group. For more information, visit www.elhaynesfamilies.com.