SAINT Clare School Home Learning

A response to a crisis

Saint Clare School’s responsiveness to meeting the evolving and diverse needs of our students is rooted in our school’s mission statement and philosophy, which expresses our commitment to providing all students with rigorous curriculum/innovative methodologies and strong academic/spiritual foundations that serve our children well, now and in the future.

The Home Learning platform will only be used in response to a Shelter-in-Place mandate. Starting August 18, 2021, all students will be attending school in-person.

“Our family continues to be thankful for Mrs. Mantecon, our principal, and her amazing leadership as we all adjusted to a new way of learning. She was able to quickly pivot the school to online learning and though our kids miss being together with their friends, the school tries to maintain as much normalcy as possible—holding morning assembly, celebrating holidays with car parades, holding student council elections and weekly social zoom in classroom. With all the careful and thoughtful planning from faculty, our kids are experiencing their full curriculum online including Math, Science, Language Arts, Social Studies, Art, Spanish, Religion, P.E.and Music classes. They are also learning about technology, being more responsible and flexing which will benefit them in the long-run. We are so appreciative of St. Clare school, faculty and principal for all the care for our kids and community.” ~ Rob and Lisa R., Carden (4th) and Chloe (TK)

Home Learning @ SAINT Clare: The plan, the vision, the partnership.

Saint Clare School’s responsiveness to meeting the evolving and diverse needs of our students is rooted in our school’s mission statement and philosophy, which expresses our commitment to providing all students with rigorous curriculum/innovative methodologies and strong academic/spiritual foundations that serve our children well, now and in the future. Our commitment to providing students with an excellent Catholic education continues through our Home Learning platform.

On March 17th 2020, Saint Clare School launched Home Learning, a home school experience for students in Transitional Kindergarten (TK) through eighth grade. Through this learning environment, our students engage in offline and online learning activities, receive live and recorded direct instruction from teachers, and participate in collaborative classroom meetings. Students are also provided with opportunities to receive live instruction and feedback from teachers through one-on-one and small group virtual meetings. 

On Wellness Wednesdays, our Saint Clare School community participates in a virtual morning assembly to pray together and celebrate student accomplishments. Teachers also Break Open the Word with their students and engage them in discussions to reinforce Gospel values and to teach our students to think critically and ethically about the world around them. A weekly live PE class and enrichment opportunities for art, music, and Spanish are also provided to our students. 

During the school closure, we know the importance of providing meaningful learning experiences grounded in research-based core instructional practices that our dedicated faculty and staff have been developing as part of the initiative from the Diocese of San Jose’s Department of Catholic Schools.


Home Learning Platforms

The following online platforms and tools are being used to support both remote learning and faculty/student/family collaboration to ensure quality student learning experiences when planning and facilitating instruction: 

Communication/Messaging (including feedback loops) between school and families

  • ParentSquare (TK-8)

  • Email (TK-8)

  • Seesaw/ClassDojo (TK-3)

Remote Learning Platform

  • Seesaw; ClassDojo (TK-Gr 3)

  • Google Classroom (Gr 4-8)

  • Weekly Learning Grids (TK-8)

Collaboration between teachers and families/students

  • Zoom (TK-8)

  • Google Drive (Gr 4-8)

  • Google App Suite (Gr 4-8)

Delivery/Facilitation of Instruction

  • Zoom

  • Screentastic, Screencastomatic; mp4 format

  • Swivl 


Parent Testimonials

“I am so proud to be a Saint Clare parent.  Although it has not been an easy transition to homebased learning, I am grateful to you and your staff for getting things going so quickly and smoothly.  I am now, even more so, in awe of how Ms. Payton and Mrs. Meneze work so seamlessly and tirelessly behind the scenes to teach our children so much!”  

“I have been so impressed with how Mrs. Soares and the Saint Clare staff have made this transition such an organized and efficient transition, given the situation. I’ve shared with others how my daughter has been learning remotely for almost two weeks now and their children are just starting this week.
I hope you receive many notes of gratitude and appreciation for all the hard work the staff has done.”

“Just thought a quick note from this mama to say ‘thank you’ couldn’t hurt.” 

“Thank you for your leadership, guidance and help with our kids and our families during these tumultuous and difficult times. Without you, your teachers, your staff and administrators efforts, we will not have the on line school up so quickly up and running in such an efficient manner.” 

“Thank you and God bless you and your team.”

“Thank you so much again for the great labor and impact from all the Saint Clare team to our kids. We know this is new for both sides but We feel very supported. It makes difficult times goes smoother. The days run faster having the kids doing different activities and feeling the engagement with their teachers. Rafael and Regina are waiting every morning to hear from their teachers and you can see the big smiles when they are listening or watching the videos. Our neighbors and friends are asking us how the kids are doing and we feel super proud to answer: Saint Clare is making an excellent job and We are very fortunate to allow to this community. Please extend our appreciation to all your team and send them tons of virtual hugs and love.”