The sun is shining! Summer weather has arrived; the actual season begins next week! More good news: We are moving to open XDC on a limited basis starting Wednesday, June 24. Families who are able to safely keep their children at home should continue to do so, if possible. It has been a delight to meet many families using our playground, while physically distancing, over the past few months. Now that we are opening XDC for the summer, this space will be reserved for their program and will be closed to the public. You may, of course, access the parking lot after 6pm each evening.
Thank you for participating in the survey, posted last week in NewsViews. We had a very good response rate. Your input will be important now that the Office for Catholic Schools has given us the go-ahead to develop plans that will enable us to bring students back on campus. A Re-Opening Task Force has been convened and will be meeting throughout the summer to solidify our plans for fall. Our plans are guided by Washington’s Department of Health and OSPI Planning Guide. While our priority is to get every student back on campus for a full school day, reopening during a pandemic will require essential changes to the school day as we know it.
As I mentioned last week, we are developing plans for three different scenarios:
- In-person for all students: We are measuring every inch of the campus to see how we can offer in-person instruction to all students. Increasing the space between desks and altering the flow of students on campus will require changes to class groupings, schedules, etc., to allow for social distancing and safety measures.
- Hybrid learning model: This is in-person instruction combined with Distance Learning Plan on a rotational basis for some or all students.
- Distance Learning 2.0: In the event that we are required to stay at home again, this would be an updated and improved version of our DLP based on feedback and experiences from the spring of 2020.
The Department of Health and the OCS will also require face masks for all K-12 students and teachers (recently updated to cloth masks only) and health screening at entry as well as physical distancing. To accommodate health screening, we will likely stagger arrival and departure times. We are asking you now, and we will remind you again, to keep children home if they are showing any signs of illness. Any student showing signs of illness at school will be sent home; please be ready to pick up your student if that is the case. Practice wearing your face coverings this summer.
We will continue to stay in contact over the summer with NewsViews delivered every two weeks.
Blessings,
Bernadette O’Leary
