Dear Waukesha Families,

We know these are trying times as you navigate how to care for your children at home, assist them with school work, and still maintain your jobs.  We are dealing with many of the same challenges as we attempt to craft this new virtual school experience and maintain our own altered home life. Our goal is certainly not to make your lives more difficult, but I can say there will be challenges ahead.  Online virtual school is a challenge even with weeks or months to prepare, and we have only had two days. So, I ask for your patience with our teaching and technical staff and we will extend the same to you. The information in this letter is intended to help you assist your students in navigating the new environment.  As a parent/guardian, I urge you to pay close attention to the parent section of our information page https://sdw.waukesha.k12.wi.us/virtual-parent. This page provides information specific to concerns you may have about web filtering and how you might be able to monitor your child's progress.  As always our primary focus in the School District of Waukesha is to keep our students safe while providing the best possible educational environment for your children to learn.  If they are learning in our buildings face to face or in your home virtually, we are committed to learning for all students. 

Steve Schlomann

CIO/CTO School District of Waukesha      

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Hello Students,

This is Mr. Schlomann from the technology department and I am going to try and help you through some basic information that you may, or may not already have received from your teacher.  If anything I say here is different from what your teacher has told you, please follow what they have told you.  They are the experts as to how your classes will be run.

Expectations: Our  expectations for you as a student during this unique learning experience are these:

Be Patient:  Many things may not work exactly as planned, but know your teacher and all of the people here in the Waukesha schools are working very hard to do the best we can to help you get the best learning experience possible.  If things do not go exactly as planned, support your teacher and classmates by offering to help. 

Be Respectful: This new virtual world is your new classroom.  Treat it and everyone in it with respect, just as you would your teachers and friends if you were actually at school.  When a teacher asks for attention and asks you to complete assignments you need to make sure you do those things. 

Be Diligent: When you are given an assignment or task, complete those as soon as you can.  Do not wait. There is always time to have fun when the work is done, and you will not have to worry about work you have put off.  If you are not hearing from your teacher, check in with them to make sure you did not miss something.

Relax: The most important thing is to remain calm.  If something is not working with your device or apps or you are having problems connecting with your teacher, reach out for help but do not stress out about it.  We will get it working.

Basic Technology info:

Here is some basic information that you all may need at some point.

• Getting help or finding Info - We have centralized all of our communications and help information in one place on our district website https://sdw.waukesha.k12.wi.us/. There is a big yellow box on the right side that will take you to the place where all of the latest information is.  There is also a link there for technical assistance. 

•  Student Username - Most everything we use depends on one student username or email address to login.  Every student has one, but some younger students may not know what it is. The format for the email is jdoe000@stu.waukesha.k12.wi.us the username is jdoe000.  First initial and last name with a three digit number to make it unique.  If you do not know what this is you will need to contact your teacher or the tech support chat line.

• Broken / Non Working or Lost Device - If for some reason your device is not working, the best option is to contact us on our  tech support chat line and see if we can help get it resolved.  If the device is physically broken/ lost or stolen fill out the Lost/Broken iPad Form. This will trigger us to contact you and make arrangements for you to bring in the iPad to us.  DO NOT COME TO SCHOOL OR OUR LINDHOLM BUILDING WITH YOUR DEVICE UNLESS WE DIRECT YOU TO COME. 

• Tools - Your teacher may very well have a different set of tools they are using to communicate with but here are the basics  These are all outlined in the help document https://sdw.waukesha.k12.wi.us/virtual-student

• Blackboard - This is our basic tool for providing materials and assignments.

• Google Classroom - This is our way to manage distributing and turning in assignments.

• WebEx Teams - This is how we will communicate in voice video and text.