Dear Alumni,
As I sit down to write this, we are in the midst of a day of Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences and professional development programming. Altogether, our school will hold more than 4000 individual conferences this fall, and we have an ambitious program for professional development. I will not be participating in any of today's conferences or PD sessions, however. Instead, I will be orchestrating what has become another critical school function in today's pandemic world: an on-campus COVID-19 testing clinic.
In the late spring, when it became clear that our world would not be rendered COVID-free in time for the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, we made an important strategic decision as a community. We decided that if the government were to permit it, we would do everything we reasonably could to operate school in person, safely, for as many families and faculty/staff members as would be prepared to return to campus. We knew that our school's unique academic/communal/Jewish mission is best actualized in person, and that it was worth significant investments of all types in order to ensure that our students and families could benefit from this.
Over the summer, we set out to transform our campuses to prepare them for pandemic-era learning. We measured each classroom and marked the floor with indicators for desk locations, spaced six feet apart. We built walls to transform our communal spaces in the Upper School into classrooms, and we rented modular buildings—now sitting in the parking lot—to add classroom capacity to the Lower School campus. We lined the hallways with decals to remind ourselves of the protocols and added stations to every classroom that included disposable masks, gloves, antiviral wipes, and cleaning solution.
Once the school year got going, what was perhaps most striking was that the campus felt like . . . a school. Very different, and yet comfortably familiar: students, smiling beneath their masks, immediately greeted their friends and embarked upon a year of productive learning, as ever. Same noisy hallways in between periods—only now, with everyone walking purposefully, in the same direction, without stopping at lockers. Students still study in groups—but now over Zoom or Google Drive, rather than sitting together in the student lounge. Friday Special Programs? Still happening, but with the speakers (including member of Congress Nita Lowey) being broadcast from hundreds of miles away (enabling alumni to tune in as well!) Shavruach? As spirited and colorful as ever, just without gathering. FCD Week? It starts tomorrow, and the critical messages will be the same, simply delivered through a different vehicle.
We have had the pleasure this year of welcoming 202 new students to our school, K-12. It is a tricky time to begin a new school—playdates with friends are much more difficult to arrange, there are no communal Shabbat dinners, and we can see only half of people's faces! At the same time, the school has perhaps never been a more joyful place—the air is palpable with a sense of appreciation for what we are able to create together as a community, even under difficult circumstances, and even as we welcome so many new members of our kehilah.
We feel incredible pride in what our alumni achieve and the people they become, and we are motivated to do whatever we can to welcome more future graduates into this proud tradition.
Michael Kay
Head of School
Back
Over the summer, we set out to transform our campuses to prepare them for pandemic-era learning. We measured each classroom and marked the floor with indicators for desk locations, spaced six feet apart. We built walls to transform our communal spaces in the Upper School into classrooms, and we rented modular buildings—now sitting in the parking lot—to add classroom capacity to the Lower School campus. We lined the hallways with decals to remind ourselves of the protocols and added stations to every classroom that included disposable masks, gloves, antiviral wipes, and cleaning solution.
Once the school year got going, what was perhaps most striking was that the campus felt like . . . a school. Very different, and yet comfortably familiar: students, smiling beneath their masks, immediately greeted their friends and embarked upon a year of productive learning, as ever. Same noisy hallways in between periods—only now, with everyone walking purposefully, in the same direction, without stopping at lockers. Students still study in groups—but now over Zoom or Google Drive, rather than sitting together in the student lounge. Friday Special Programs? Still happening, but with the speakers (including member of Congress Nita Lowey) being broadcast from hundreds of miles away (enabling alumni to tune in as well!) Shavruach? As spirited and colorful as ever, just without gathering. FCD Week? It starts tomorrow, and the critical messages will be the same, simply delivered through a different vehicle.
We have had the pleasure this year of welcoming 202 new students to our school, K-12. It is a tricky time to begin a new school—playdates with friends are much more difficult to arrange, there are no communal Shabbat dinners, and we can see only half of people's faces! At the same time, the school has perhaps never been a more joyful place—the air is palpable with a sense of appreciation for what we are able to create together as a community, even under difficult circumstances, and even as we welcome so many new members of our kehilah.
We feel incredible pride in what our alumni achieve and the people they become, and we are motivated to do whatever we can to welcome more future graduates into this proud tradition.
Michael Kay
Head of School
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