Short Term Independent Study

To ensure we abide by recent legislation and support students while they learn at home due to COVID-related absences, beginning Monday, October 18, all students learning from home due to a COVID-related absence will be on what’s called “Short Term Independent Study.”  

Per Education Code, in order for students to participate in this new Short Term Independent Study, a parent or guardian must sign a “Master Agreement for Site Independent Study.” The Master Agreement can be signed digitally, online, in the PowerSchool Parent Portal under Forms. If you don’t have a PowerSchool account, you can retrieve the Access Code and Password needed to create an account by using the Parent Account Lookup tool. 

Watch this video for step-by-step instructions on how to sign the “Master Agreement for Site Independent Study”English / Spanish

Once signed, the Master Agreement will remain in place for the entire 2021-2022 school year. It is important to note, per the recent legislation, the Master Agreement applies only to students who are home due to COVID-related absences.

Students will access each day’s assignments in their teacher’s Schoology folder. Teachers will assign work to correspond with the required number of daily instructional minutes. These daily required minutes are:

  • Transitional Kindergarten and Kindergarten = 180 minutes 

  • Grades 1-3 = 230 minutes

  • Grades 4-12 = 240 minutes

Students in grades TK-6 (and Tuolumne grade 7) will have access to live virtual instruction each day. Students in grades 7-12 will have access to live virtual instruction one day per week. Students will use their district-issued device to access the live virtual instruction via Microsoft Teams. Schedules and links for these meetings will be provided by classroom teacher(s).

Teachers will generate schoolwork daily for students who are absent. Directions can be located in Schoology. Teachers may also assign paper assignments. When possible, all homework is due to the classroom teacher when a student returns to school.

There are a number of resources to help students and parents/guardians access and use PowerSchool and Schoology on the Student Help Center and Parent Help Center webpages. 

A student’s assignment due date will be calculated based on their absences, allowing for a maximum of two school days of makeup time for each day of absence upon return. Completed assignments will be included in students’ report card grades. 

Students may return to school after satisfying COVID-related clearance requirements. Students may only receive attendance credit for the days which they did not attend school. 

Coming soon – FAQ!