Helpful Resources for Learning at Home

With all students studying remotely in December and January, parents and guardians will play an even more important role in how their children engage with Andover’s program. In upcoming issues of the Parent Bulletin, we will be sharing some resources that you might find helpful. This week we suggest Tips for Supporting Learning at Home, an article about academic preparation and social-emotional learning.

Ongoing Wellness Center Services

The wellness team is still here for you and your Andover student, even during these two months of remote learning.

Reporting an Illness or Injury—Remember to call if your student is too ill to attend virtual classes, even though they are at home. We can provide guidance and care collaboration/coordination if we are aware of an illness, injury, or health needs. All absences for a health reason must be called into the wellness center (978-749-4455) to ensure excuses can be issued.
Centralized Information—Help us to keep your student’s record up to date by providing us with documentation of recent physicals, immunizations, or changes in health. Please take a look at the health portal to be sure that your child’s record is complete. For example, if your child obtained their seasonal influenza vaccine at home, please upload documentation.
Social Media—Follow us on Instagram (@pawellness) for wellness tips, messages, and upcoming challenges.

Hours and contact information: To reach one of our team members by voice, please call 978-749-4455 Monday through Friday, between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. EST. Voicemail messages may be left outside of these hours for a return call the next business day. You can also send us an email.

After virtual classes end on December 16, the wellness team will be available by phone Monday through Friday, between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Please note we will be closed December 23–January 3 and will reopen Monday, January 4, 2021, at 8 a.m.

Tomorrow: Health Webinar for Families

We all want to keep healthy kids healthy! To do so, you and other family members can all play a role when it comes to the prevention of teen alcohol and other drug misuse. From an early age and onward, health promotion at home requires that parents and guardians be informed and ready to be active in everyday prevention opportunities in the family.

FCD Prevention Works is offering a webinar on Friday, December 4, from 1 to 2 p.m. EST to help families start the prevention conversation with children of all ages. Please register now for “Conversation Starters: A Webinar for Parents and Other Family Members.”

Tomorrow: Brace Presentation

The Brace Center for Gender Studies welcomes families to our second Brace Student Fellow presentation of the 2020–2021 academic year on Friday, December 4, at 7 p.m. EST. Denise Taveras ’21 will present “Burlesque: Understanding Empowerment Through Objectification.” Her project contributes to current conversations about women reclaiming sexuality despite being objectified, enhancing our understanding of how people find empowerment. In exploring different historical moments in the American burlesque industry, Taveras examines the contexts performers had to navigate and the strategies they used to combat objectification, providing examples of different forms of empowerment. Her faculty advisor is Dr. Kiran Bhardwaj, instructor in philosophy and religious studies. Please register to receive Zoom link.

Reminders from the Dean of Studies

Student privacy while learning online: An essential element of an Andover education is to promote independent learning. While we appreciate parents as partners in this process, each student needs to attend their classes without parent involvement during that class. All students and teachers presume that the faces in their Zoom room are the intended audience—and the only audience—for their sharing during discussions.

Parents and academic integrity: At the beginning of every year, all students read the PA Academic Integrity Primer and sign off that they understand the parameters of doing good intellectual work in an academic community. In addition, all English instructors go over academic integrity expectations with their students at the beginning of each term, and other departments regularly offer guidance specific to the assignment or discipline.

While the responsibility of academic integrity is up to each student, there are things you can do to help. Please wait until students have submitted written work before reading it. Their ideas and writing—yes, every comma—must be their own, and they may not receive help on assignments from family, friends, tutors, or the internet—except as part of peer-editing and workshopping in class or as an explicit part of a collaborative assignment. If students are feeling unsure or overwhelmed, please encourage them to reach out to their teachers for help. All students have conference period several times a week, and there is a great online Writing Center, available via the Academic Skills Center.

Ultimately, in addition to the content areas we teach, we are also working to create confident and independent learners who ask for appropriate help when they need it, and we know that a lot of their learning will be in their mistakes and the productive struggles. If there is a violation of our academic integrity standards, then the teacher, department chair, and a member of the Dean of Studies office will work with the student to help them understand the violation, which could also lead to a disciplinary committee (DC) meeting.

Expert Advice for Parents

How can you best support the personal and academic needs of your children while also attending to your own professional and familial needs? Explore this question and more during a virtual conversation titled “Navigating School During Uncertain Times,” led by Dr. Denise Pope, Stanford Graduate School of Education senior lecturer, on Tuesday, January 12, at 7 p.m. EST.

Pope will share ways parents and caregivers can establish a healthier home environment for their school-aged child, reduce academic stress without sacrificing achievement, and increase their child’s resilience, creativity, and well-being. Co-founder of Challenge Success, Pope is the author of “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students and co-author of Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids. The link to join the event will be available soon on the Tang Institute website.

Summer Is Coming

It’s hard to plan for six days from now, let alone six months…but summer is coming. What will your kids—and their friends—be doing? While we don’t know exactly what summer 2021 will look like, one thing is for sure: Andover will be offering academic programs to students currently in grades 6–11. If there is someone in your life who might be looking for a summer opportunity, now is the time for them to explore all that Andover Summer has to offer.

Students can fill out the summer application for either our residential or online program, or they can learn more about the program by exploring our website or participating in an admissions webinar. Help us spread the word!

Pot Pourri Senior Portraits

The deadline for submitting your student’s Senior Portrait for the big, beautiful Pot Pourri yearbook is January 10. Please review this important yearbook letter for more information. Families of juniors, lowers, and uppers, please refer to this document for information on how you can help with content this year and how to purchase a yearbook. Questions? Just send us an email.

Updates from Parent Development

Thank you to the many parents from around the world who have contributed to the Parent Fund through the fall term. If you have not done so already, please consider joining your fellow parents by making a gift of any size. We hope the end of the year will foster strong support among Andover parents. Remember, your Parent Fund gift benefits all students this school year and represents an especially meaningful expression of support and partnership for Andover.

Parent Donor Spotlight: What inspired you to give to Andover this year? “We admire what Andover strives to do for its students, and we are grateful for the support Andover has given our son and the opportunity to expand his worldview. The bag is filled ‘bean by bean’—so we are adding the beans we can spare.” —Edward Washington II and Leslie Demourelle Washington P’22

If you would like to share why you donated to the Parent Fund this year, please email Shannan Clarke. We’d love to hear from you!

News from the PSPA

We are excited to invite you and your students to learn about living on and under Antarctic ice at our next PSPA Speaker Series event.

“Penguins & Parkas” with Robin L. Aiello ’80—Tuesday, December 15, at 7 p.m. EST: In the late 1980s, scientists in Antarctica carried out “extreme” research. Robin Aiello, with her team of five research scuba divers, was one of the first women to spend four months camping out “in the field” in Antarctica and was one of the first female scuba divers—if not the first—under the thick ice of the Ross Sea. What was she looking for? Well…come and find out. Join Robin as she shares some of her fascinating and sometimes hilarious adventures of living and diving in Antarctica. Watch for the Zoom link in next week’s Parent Bulletin.

Subscribe to receive PSPA news and connect with us on social: Visit our website and link to subscribe to receive our newsletters/emails and stay connected with your PSPA friends. Follow us on Instagram (@pspaandover) and Facebook (by the group name Parents of Students of Phillips Academy).

Shop the Campus Closet 24/7: Click here to check out our new Andover holiday merchandise and shop the Campus Closet store online. All proceeds benefit our students!

You Are Invited!

December 3: Reclaiming the Lost Legacy of J.O.J. Frost, a book talk with Bethe Lee Moulton ’66
December 4: Brace Center Student Fellow Presentation with Denise Taveras ’21
December 8: A Conversation with Jonathan Alter ’75 and Frank Lavin ’75
December 8: At the Table with the Equity & Inclusion Committee—A Conversation Around Religious Identity
December 9: Meet Our 16th Head of School, Raynard S. Kington, MD, PhD, P’24, hosted by the Southern California Regional Leadership Team
December 11: CAMD Scholar Presentation with Jerry Shu ’21
December 14: Af-Lat-Am Community Discussion on Wellness in 2020 and Beyond
December 15: Meet Our 16th Head of School, Raynard S. Kington, MD, PhD, P’24, hosted by the Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia Regional Leadership Teams
December 17: Community Celebration to Toast the Holidays
January 12: Meet Our 16th Head of School, Raynard S. Kington, MD, PhD, P’24, hosted by the Hong Kong Regional Leadership Team

All events are virtual. Please join us!

Parent Bulletin Archive »

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