News from The Castle and its Kingdom

 

​It is said that “distance makes the heart grow fonder.” From my recent experiences as an Auburn parent liaison – along with liaisons Reginald "Reggie" Brooks, Hosea Harris, Taylor Griffin and Brian Frayne – this seems to be true.

COVID-19 has broken the schedules, but not the spirits, of our students and staff. In fact, I am pleased to announce some of the successes we are experiencing while distance learning at The Castle (and throughout its Kingdom).

As a liaison team, we try to focus on students who need just a little extra motivation to meet their full potential. We currently have a focus group in which we are making around 300 contacts a week with Auburn students and parents. We have found that the COVID-19 situation has actually increased our amount of communication with parents and teachers alike. Parents and students seem to be happier to hear from us than before and seem to be more motivated as they have more involvement and exposure to their students’ education.

We recently began to reap some of the benefits of this increased involvement and communication. Since the beginning of distance learning, we have been able to improve more than 105 failing grades to passing status. We have more than 35 students who went from failing one class or more to passing all classes! This is great news, especially when we consider the impact this will have on our second semester; which combines a student’s third and fourth quarter grades.

We are looking forward to bringing this positive momentum into the fourth quarter. Auburn liaisons continue to meet weekly as a team and with other liaisons throughout the district. We also meet with our teachers and administrators weekly. We are continually trying to share and develop new ideas, new methods of communication, and trying to reinvent ourselves to better serve our families and our community.

We must thank all of our students, parents, teachers, office professionals and administrators. All of our efforts have combined to provide us this celebration of successes. We could not do this without all of us involved and committed. We are a community, a team and a family. We are Auburn! And we are The Knights!

 

---

 

Ryan Jones

Ryan Jones a parent liaison at Auburn High School. During the summer he works as an outdoor educator and camp director at an organic farm. When he is not working, you can usually catch Ryan outside on one of the local rivers/lakes or on a trail hiking or mountain biking.