Greetings MPH Community,
With even more appreciation for our close-knit MPH community and drawing regular inspiration from the dedication and determination of so many talented members of the MPH professional team, I’m pleased to report that we’ve had another extraordinary week of planning and preparation for the 2020-2021 school year. We have just completed the first of two weeks of intensive professional development, and the teaching and learning happening right now is extraordinary.
From the 1844 classic Three Musketeers, French author Alexandre Dumas can be credited with the expression “Un pour tous, tous pour un,” better known to many of us in the English translation (which inverts the order of the phrases) as “All for one, and one for all.” If we are to be successful and healthy this year, it will require exactly that mindset: each individual’s and each family’s full commitment to the MPH Social Compact, which includes the MPH Mission and Core Values, and states “Manlius Pebble Hill School engenders a sense of belonging for all community members by honoring each individual. MPH supports the personal growth of every student and colleague, appreciating that each MPH member is freely bound in a social compact that ensures we are mindful of one another and that we act with our collective interest in mind.”
If you were a player in major league baseball and your career batting average represented a success rate of over 35 percent, you would likely be voted into the Hall of Fame. In the context of participation for survey completion, anything over 50 percent is generally regarded as a successful response rate. By this measure, the 83 percent family response rate to our first survey would be hailed as a tremendous success, and I do want to thank those of you who have returned the information we requested. However, we have a very different context in this extraordinary year, and in order to safeguard the health and well-being of every member of the community, confirming details that will inform our decisions about transportation, daily heath check-ins, safe classroom spacing, food service, and the like, is essential to our precise planning — literally down to each individual student. Partial feedback provides only partial information — and we are planning for the whole community. Going forward, when we survey the community, we must hear back from 100 percent of our families in order to prepare accurately. This 100 percent completion standard will be in effect every day during the school year when each and every MPH student and employee will be required to complete and submit our Daily Health Assessment. Toward that end, please complete this brief survey — one for each of your children who is an MPH student — by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, August 17.
Last Friday, Governor Cuomo announced that, based on each region’s infection rate,
schools across New York will be permitted to open this fall. He stipulated that schools must clarify their plans in three key areas: distance learning, COVID-19 testing, and tracing of positive cases. Details of MPH’s plans in these areas can be found here. The governor further stipulated that schools must hold public meetings with parents as well as teachers to review their reopening plans. Over the past several weeks, MPH has held numerous Community Conversations to discuss The MPH Social Compact and Plan for the 2020-2021 School Year. Two additional meetings for parents and guardians will held via Zoom video conference:
We have also begun posting answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the MY MPH page of our website. We will continue to add to these questions as details become available. As with all of our preparations to date, we will monitor the evolving situation with COVID-19 and will adjust our planning accordingly.
Thank you, as always, for your support, and best wishes to all members of your family for good health!
Sincerely,
Dave McCusker
Head of School
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