Dear families,
After tireless work and monumental efforts over the past few months, we are excited to have students back on campus. We are writing to update you on our opening weekend and to reiterate the steps we are taking for a safe and productive school year.
First and foremost, we are very pleased to inform you that we now have confirmation that all students and employees tested negative for COVID-19 upon entering campus.
Moving forward, while we expect this school year to be like no other in our history, we are prepared for every eventuality and ready to make positive memories. Thank you for your continued patience as we began the year online today, and as we plan to resume face-to-face classes tomorrow.
Health and Safety
As we contemplated reopening our campus, we focused on several priorities: having a measured and appropriate response to the global pandemic in order to provide a safe educational and physical environment for our students, faculty, and staff; once open, maintaining the health and safety of our community; working to support public health goals to reduce the spread of the virus; and working to maintain a rigorous, comprehensive learning and living experience for our students. We continue to respect and follow best practices and public health guidance as it relates to implementing these priorities.
To meet these goals, we have taken several tangible steps to enable students, faculty, and staff to engage in physical distancing and behavioral changes necessary to prevent the spread of infection. These include:
High-frequency Testing: As you know, an important aspect of our reopening plan is to screen for COVID-19 symptoms and test students and employees on a regular basis. We plan to test the entire community again on this Wednesday, August 26.
We are also conducting mandatory, strategized, various group sampling COVID-19 surveillance testing one time per week for students, faculty, and staff beginning on September 2. This is a strategy recommended by federal, state, and local health officials, and has been adopted by our Bring the Penguins Home Task Force, including our consulting epidemiologist. The purpose of this high-frequency surveillance testing is to quickly identify and contain any instances of infection on our campus.
Public Health Protocols: Our campus community is following public health measures that include symptom monitoring, mandatory face masks/coverings indoors and outdoors, hand-sanitizing, and mandatory physical distancing.
- Everyone is expected to wear masks in class, in public common areas (inside and outside), and also inside dormitories and other school buildings (with the exception of a student’s individual dormitory room with the door closed or while eating, drinking, brushing teeth, or bathing). Please remind your child(ren) that compliance is critical.
- Dormitory access is restricted to residents only. Day students are to leave campus immediately following their last commitment of the day.
- As you are aware, students have been divided into smaller “Waddle” networks to encourage physical distancing.
Cleaning Enhancements and Building Modifications: We have enhanced our cleaning protocols, changed foot-traffic flow through buildings and on-campus pathways, and much more, to ensure that all campus spaces and buildings support the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff. We have also brought in a vendor that specializes in facility sanitization to maintain the cleanliness of campus spaces, and they have been working regularly on campus.
Quarantine & Isolation Procedures: Community members who test positive for COVID-19 must self-isolate; we have identified spaces and protocols to properly isolate and care for any residential students who have been exposed to the virus. We have adopted similar protocols for employees.
Contact Tracing: To help determine the risk of potential exposure to others, we will conduct contact tracing for any Cushing community member who tests positive. We have been in touch with our local department of health about these protocols.
In This Together
It is critical that we all unite behind the common goal of a safe campus and be mindful in following the careful protocols established to make the return to campus successful. I want to express my gratitude to those who have worked so hard to make this unusual return to campus, and our ability to remain on campus, possible. We will continue to update you as circumstances warrant.
We are happy to have you and your children here as a part of our community. We have anxiously awaited the students' return to campus as returning students, or their arrival to campus as new students, for so many months now. We are excited for the year ahead.
Thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
