Dear Parents,

These last two weeks have been another great example of how our community comes together and adapts to changing circumstances. We appreciate your trust in us as we navigated the opening of school after winter break to ensure the safest environment for our entire community. 

We look forward to having our full high school back in attendance on Monday, January 17th and were delighted to be able to have our Juniors and Seniors here during this week.  Your sweet children were kind enough to stop us in the hallways, send emails to thank us and express how grateful they were to be back on campus.  

We have just two more weeks until the end of semester exams for some classes and will be communicated in class. We have shifted away from off-timetable exams and moved to in class exams. January 17th-28th students are expected to be in school daily and follow their normal schedule. 

As you can see from the table below, we have structured the next two weeks so that students are not overburdened by too many assessments in one day. Our hope is that this not only supports student learning but also addresses the well being of our students.

END OF SEMESTER ASSESSMENT SCHEDULE

Kind Regards,

Tammy Jochinke

High School Principal

Food:

All students are required to bring the food they need to school. With our cafeteria and food carts closed, please be prepared. Students will not be permitted to order delivery food as per normal guidelines.  

Breaks and lunches:

• No food or drink will be served at school. Students will need to bring their own food for both break and lunch.  Lunch will be in period 3 classrooms. Lunch 1 is from 11:15-12:00 and Lunch 2 is from 12:45-1:30.

• Students will remain in their classrooms for break and for lunch. Please remember to bring your own food. 

• The senior lounge will remain closed until further notice. 

• At the end of the day all students need to leave campus by 3:05 Monday to Thursday or by 12:10 on Friday.

Assessment Policy:

It is important to remind students that our assessment policy remains, whereby students who miss any major assessments are required to present a doctor's note which excuses the absence. Only students who are designated by the school as remote learners are able to arrange and take exams while learning remotely. 

Communication:

Lastly, if students are unable to attend classes due to COVID related issues, please ensure that you continue to reach out to your teachers to make the necessary arrangements. Communication with your teachers is one of the keys to your academic success.

Reminder of COVID safety protocols:

We want to thank you for your continued support and understanding.

As we return back to school and deal with the new Omicron variant, we wanted to remind you of our safety expectations:

1. All students are required to adhere to our mask wearing guidelines. If your high school student wears disposable masks, please remind them to pinch it over their nose to ensure that it does not slide down. 

2. All students are required to remain socially distanced from one another. 

3. All students are expected to sanitize their hands periodically throughout the day.

4. All students are asked not to share any personal items.

5. All students are required to leave the campus grounds within 10 minutes of dismissal. If your high school student takes a taxi service, please ensure that this is pre-booked to avoid unnecessary wait times.

We would like to begin by thanking you for your ongoing support and patience as we navigate these challenging times that we are all facing. As we have shared with you, our priority has been to provide an HSC week that gives students the rewarding opportunity to explore and pursue service learning safely.  

We have been monitoring the situation on many levels including travel restrictions, COVID numbers and testing requirements, as well as other operational logistics in order to keep student safety and opportunity as the focus of the week. After much consideration, we have decided to move all activities planned for HSC Week to May of this year.  

We know this change brings many questions. Please be patient with us as we work diligently with our service providers to determine concrete details about each experience. As we receive information about each experience, we will share those with you. 

Thank you,

Tara Oswald, Dean of Students

During the months of February and March, high school administrators, counselors, and teachers will host several sessions to guide parents and students in selecting student’s courses for the 2022-2023 academic year. We invite parents and students to join our virtual, grade-level specific Pathways Evenings, where we will provide an overview of the programs and courses offered at Dubai American Academy.

Please join us via Zoom* from 6:00pm-7:00pm for your grade level’s Pathways Evening.

• Grade 9 to Grade 10: Monday, February 7th

• Grade 10 to Grade 11: Tuesday, February 8th

• Grade 11 to Grade 12: Wednesday, February 9th

*Zoom details will be sent out prior to the evening.

We look forward to sharing information about the IB, AP, and US High School pathways available to Dubai American Academy high school students.

Kind Regards,

Ashley Szar, Director of Academic Pathways

Winter MAP testing begins January 31st 2022

Dear Parents and students, 

Students in Grade 9 and 10 and AP classes will be once again completing MAP testing in the following areas:

1. Math

2. Reading

3. Language Usage

4. Science

MAP stands for Measures of Academic Progress and provides our teachers and administrators with valuable student data that we use to inform our teaching practice.

Students are reminded to get lots of rest and to eat a healthy breakfast prior to writing any assessment.

Sora is the school-facing front of Overdrive, the largest digital library collection used by many public libraries around the world. With Sora, students can take out eBooks and audiobooks with the click of a button, then read them on any web browser on any device, or even read directly from the app. It’s super easy to use and means you now have access to our collection no matter where in the world you roam! 

We’re excited to push this out to our community right before the winter break. Now when you hop on your flight, you’ll have our library at your fingertips!

Check out the tutorial below or click on this Sora App link to get started! Use your school Gmail (.net) login to access our library collection.