As we look at the next school year, everyone is wondering the same question. What does education look like for students in the 2020-2021 school year? That is a great question! Our hope is that the school year will begin in green. However, TECS faculty and staff will be prepared for all scenarios. We have already experienced red and orange (high risk, moderate risk) and have ideas and strategies to help streamline and improve what we already did for our students during those times. The question is what does yellow look like (low-risk phase).
If we open the school year in yellow or move to yellow, this will be the trickiest to navigate. Yellow means that we can have students at school for learning, but we will need to have additional safety precautions in place.
Yellow will have the following guidelines and precautions to ensure that student safety is our priority:
- To date, the best prevention of the spread of Covid-19 (or any other illness) is proper hygiene and sanitization. We will have hand sanitizer in each classroom. Sanitization of desks, chairs, doorknobs, etc. will occur regularly.
- Please do not send students to school when they have symptoms of any illness (i.e. fever, runny nose/sneezing, coughing, diarrhea, etc.).
- Morning Greeting and assemblies will not be in the gym. We will have a mix of broadcasting morning greeting to student rooms along with teachers running their own morning greeting. Students will report directly to their classroom when they arrive at school.
- Students will rotate days eating in the gym vs. eating in their classroom. We will stagger the time so that no more than one grade level will be in the cafeteria at a time. Social distancing will be monitored.
- Recess will be held, but classes will be assigned an area on the playground for the day and will rotate assigned areas each day so they can take turns on different playground equipment and areas. Minimal recess equipment will be used by students and when it is, it will be sanitized after each recess.
- Transitions in the halls will be directional and divider ropes will be in place to reduce interactions and increase distancing.
- All students will be assigned their own Chromebook and will be responsible for its daily care and cleaning. MS students will start the day in their homework room, pick up a Chromebook, take it to all classes, and return it to the homework room at the end of the day. The Chromebooks stay at school.
- In the classroom, students will be spread 6 feet apart where possible and will have a mask.
- During transitions and at recess, students will be asked to wear a mask.
- We ask that each student have a reusable mask with them as well as their own hand sanitizer container. We will have some TECS logoed masks available at our school clothing store for a cost, or some that have been donated and are free of charge. If you do provide your own, please make sure they are a solid color and have no pattern on them.
This is the current plan for students attending school in yellow. What about immunocompromised students or students with higher risk populations at their home? To accommodate all of our families, we are making preparations so that everyone can be at school and can feel that they are safe and that those that cannot be at school, can still access the TECS learning environment from home.
Though we DO NOT recommend it, if there is a real need, we are able to work with students in getting remote learning set up. We have seen that there are significant drawbacks to students learning from the home environment and that you, as parents, were faced with significant challenges in facilitating their learning at the high level we are accustomed to at TECS. If you do have a student that falls into the immunocompromised category or have family members that do, please contact me ASAP via email at [email protected]. We will need to have something in place before school starts. I also need to know which students might choose this option so that we can balance classes. There are specific guidelines that are required to be followed with this option.
Thank you for your continued support. We have amazing students and parents and I have no doubt that the 2020-2021 school year will be wonderful and that we can successfully navigate any and all challenges that may arise.
Melani Kirk, Principal