February 18, 2022

Dear Parents and Guardians,

As we close in on finishing the week, I am glad to have this opportunity to be in touch with Spring Break coming into view and the Omicron variant fading from our lives. This is a welcome combination after such a challenging return to school in early January. We have been proud of the ways in which our faculty and students pushed through the many disruptions we had to contend with in January in order to have a fun and successful Winter Term under trying circumstances.

Our start to the second semester has brought with it a precipitous drop in COVID-19 cases, and we are all hopeful this trend will continue through the balance of the winter and spring. As has been the case since the pandemic began, your support and partnership has made all the difference as we do our best to navigate the highs and lows with all of your children. We are hopeful that 2022 will see sustained improvement and greater ability to function safely and in person as variants come and go. Our fingers are crossed!

Before proceeding, I want to thank all of you for the overwhelming support and countless offers to help that have come our way since one of our students experienced a very serious health episode nearly two weeks ago. He is continuing to get exceptional care from an extraordinary team of doctors and nurses. All of the thoughts and prayers that have been sent to him and his family are making a difference, and we will continue do everything we can to support them over the days and weeks ahead. We will remain in touch with the family and will share additional updates where appropriate. Again, thank you.

From here, I would like to spend some time updating all of you about our pandemic protocols and offer an early glimpse at where we might be when we return to classes following Spring Break on March 24. In addition, I would like to take a look at our calendar of activity leading up to our departure for Spring Break on Saturday, March 5. 

With COVID-19 case levels in steep decline nationally, regionally, and locally, we have moved in the direction of relaxing our mask requirement. I shared this step with the school on Monday in Chapel. For the period of time leading up to Spring Break, we are planning to adhere to the following approach:

Mask-Optional Locations:
  • Classrooms, as determined by the teacher
  • Academic Building, Luce Library, Lehman Art Center, and the Center for the Arts, unless otherwise directed by a teacher or adult
  • Wilder Dining Hall and Student Center, unless otherwise directed by a teacher or adult
  • Dormitories, unless otherwise directed by a teacher or adult
  • Athletic Center and Athletic Facilities, unless otherwise directed by a teacher or adult
  • All outdoor areas on campus

Mask-Required Locations/Circumstances:
  • Health and Wellness Center, at all times
  • Chapel services on Monday, Thursday, and any other time we are there as a whole school
  • School meeting, or any other large gatherings in the theater; masks will be required for all attending Rent at the end of next week
  • Any winter interscholastic athletic games held on our campus; masks must be worn by spectators at all times and by athletes if we are competing against schools that have that requirement
  • We expect all community members to wear masks in accordance with CDC guidelines when returning to campus after having tested positive for COVID-19
  • We expect all community members to wear masks if they are not feeling well

It is important to note that a number of our community members will continue to want and/or need to wear masks for their own reasons. So, there will likely be occasions when a number of us will need to wear masks in order to ensure as best we can that others in our community can stay safe and healthy. We have a collective responsibility to make certain that anyone wanting or needing to wear a mask has the school’s support at all times. Thanks for your help with this effort. 

We will also be offering our second COVID-19 booster clinic on campus on Friday, March 4. Any student or employee who has not yet received a booster is eligible to sign up. As a reminder, we have indicated in earlier communications that all students and employees who do not have a school-approved exemption must receive a COVID-19 booster no later than Wednesday, March 9. Please be prepared to share updated vaccination cards with the Health and Wellness Center. We will be following up with students and employees who have not yet shared their booster status with us over the coming week. To be clear, any student or employee who has not received a booster and does not have a school-approved exemption will not be allowed to return to work or school at the end of Spring Break on Wednesday, March 23. Please be in touch if you have any questions.

As we look to the spring, all of us are hopeful that the combination of staying current with vaccines and an ongoing decline in COVID-19 case levels will allow us to have a largely unrestricted spring. At present, we are not planning to administer reentry testing when we come back to school on March 23. We are planning to have ample rapid antigen test supply, and to use that supply for any community member who is symptomatic or a close contact of someone who tests positive. Our goal is to move in a direction that has us living fully with the reality of COVID-19 being with us for years to come. Our hope is that we will soon move from a pandemic state to the endemic state some are suggesting might not be that far away. 

In these final two weeks before Spring Break, there will be a lot of opportunity to take in Brooks School events of all sorts with the culmination of the winter season upon us. Here is just some of what is in store:

  • At the end of the coming week, the cast and crew of Rent will be performing on Thursday, February 24, Friday, February 25, and Saturday, February 26. All shows begin at 7:30 p.m. You do need to reserve tickets ahead of time and can do that HERE. This will be the first live musical held in our theater in two years. We are excited to see the performances and all the work that has gone into pulling the show together! 

  • Our winter athletic season concludes on Saturday, February 26, and it has been a lot of fun to see teams competing at all levels on rinks, courts, and mats. The Omicron variant has made it very difficult for our athletic department, athletes, and coaches to manage it all, and the biggest triumph has been their collective resilience and persistence -- completing this season is a feat unto itself. We are also excited to have a number of teams poised to compete in New England and national tournaments over the next few weeks and right up to the weekend when we depart for Spring Break. Stay tuned for the schedule!

  • While you all received this news in an earlier email, I would like to add briefly to our announcement that Nina Hanlon, currently director of enrollment and financial aid at Greenwich Academy, will be coming to Brooks this summer as assistant head of school. As the announcement indicated, Nina is an exceptionally accomplished leader and person, and we are all extremely excited to welcome her to the community. There will be some opportunities for Nina and her family to visit this spring, and we are looking forward to doing all we can to help her get off to a great start at Brooks. I am very excited to have the chance to work with her!

  • Finally, many thanks to all of you who have supported the Brooks Fund, in general, and participated in Giving Day yesterday. We will look forward to sharing the results with the whole community once we have a final tally, but please know your support means a great deal. Thank you!

I hope all of you will have some time at a slower-than-usual pace to spend with your Brooks School children as we recharge ahead of a promising spring. We will be in touch ahead of Wednesday, March 23, if our plans for returning to school at that time take a turn in an unforeseen direction. For now, we are going to hope that our return will be uneventful and the beginning of the least restricted stretch of the 2021-2022 school year. Until then, take good care and please be in touch if I can help with any questions.

Best,

John R. Packard
Head of School