Dear TMS community,
As of September 15th, Marin County’s COVID-19 community risk status has been shifted from Tier 1 (“widespread” / purple) to Tier 2 (“substantial” / red). This came as the result of the county's successful appeal to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to move to Tier 2—after initially being placed in the most restrictive tier in the lastest risk assessment. If you would like to read more about what this means for the wider Marin County community and certain business sectors, please read the Marin Health & Human Services (MHHS) press release from September 15th here.
I’m writing to you today about the next steps concerning TMS’ potential return to in-person instruction, and with a tentative timeline of how this may happen. First, I need to emphasize that the next two weeks will be crucial, as Marin County must maintain Tier 2 COVID-19 case data for two consecutive weeks before schools can reopen. That means that the earliest date that Marin County schools can open for full in-person instruction (with health & safety modifications) is Tuesday, September 29th.
When we learned on July 17th that Marin County high schools would be required to start the school year online, we shifted nearly all of our resources toward making remote learning as robust and effective as possible. As a result of a lot of hard work by our small team of faculty and staff, our remote learning program has been going well. Small class sizes mean no one is going unnoticed, and everyone’s voice is heard (unless they momentarily forget to unmute on Zoom, of course...). But we also know that high school is more than just lessons, quizzes, lectures, and slides. We are grateful for the technology that keeps us connected and lets us see each other’s faces every day, but we also acknowledge that it’s not a real substitute for the connections we make in person. We know remote learning is not the ideal way to learn for our community.
The question of when is the right time to return to campus is a complex one. Despite the strong urge that many of us have to return to campus immediately for “normal school at TMS,” the safety of our entire community is our first priority. We want to ensure that we take measured steps, and move forward thoughtfully and purposefully, and with a clear understanding that “normal” will look very different for some time to come. We have seen the fallout from college and university campuses that faced closure or a move to remote learning due to community spread. We also realize that new information about COVID-19 is surfacing all the time, not the least of which is scientific evidence to support the idea that high school students spread the virus more like adults do, and not so much like children under the age of ten do. We will not put our staff and students in a situation that endangers their health, or unintentionally causes even further disruption to their education. As we’ve said all along, we will be proceeding with caution.
We are especially mindful of the potential upheaval that may happen if Marin County is reassigned to a different community risk status Tier after a short period of in-person learning, or if there is community spread at TMS that causes our school to suspend on-campus operations and return to a remote learning format. There is obviously much to weigh in a decision to return to campus, and we are grateful for the guidance given by MHHS and Marin County Office of Education (MCOE) on this front. Though the best-case scenario timeline at this moment would allow TMS to open on September 29th, it is simply not advisable for our school to proceed according to what would be, for us, a rushed timeline.
There is still much to do for us to reopen school on campus, including:
- Faculty and staff need extensive return-to-campus training around healthy and safety practices and operational procedures.
- COVID-specific facilities updates need to be completed to ensure we are safe and compliant with directives for proper airflow, one-way egress, PPE and more.
- Everyone (faculty, staff, and students) will need to make arrangements and adjustments to their daily schedule in terms of commute, childcare, etc. to be ready for the start of in-person learning.
- All faculty, staff, students, and families will need to practice (or continue to practice) more stringent social distancing measures to help keep everyone in our community safe. We will have a broad set of community agreements that we will ask faculty, staff, families, and students to adhere to—more to come on this topic.
- Students will need to begin to get in the habit of completing a daily health check and get comfortable wearing a mask for long periods of time—more to come on the health check topic.
- We need to implement campus-wide COVID testing of faculty and staff who will have contact with students to ensure there are no asymptomatic carriers before in-person instruction starts.
- New students need time to prepare for on-campus instruction and procedures, with some small group orientations led by TMS staff.
- Returning students need preparation around on-campus health & safety procedures; TMS needs time to run through a process of staggered, cohort-based returns to campus.
In addition to the necessary steps listed above, there are some big “IF’s” related to whether or not we can return, including:
‘IF’ faculty are able to return to campus—this continues to be dependent on local public school systems being open for our faculty with school-aged children.
‘IF’ enough faculty members feel safe teaching on campus.
‘IF’ enough families feel safe sending their children to campus (we will be surveying our families to get a better sense of where families are now, including if there are any families that want their students to stick with remote learning).
‘IF’ TMS can meet the needs of students who require transportation (on this topic—have you completed the TMS Transportation Survey? It is due today! Limitations mean only providing service for families for whom it is absolutely necessary).
‘IF’ fire activity slows and AQI in our area improves; it will be difficult for us to safely keep students inside for entire school days if the AQI is above healthy levels.
‘IF’ positive COVID-19 results in our initial round of testing are below public health recommended guidelines.
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“Pencil Draft” of return to campus timeline:
Important note: The dates below represent what we consider to be a best-case scenario. Please “pencil in” these dates, but understand that this timeline may change depending upon conditions in our area.
Monday, October 5 - Virtual Student Conferences (moved from 10/26). No classes.
Friday, October 23 - End of midterms for First Semester.
As explained above, please note that midterm grades will appear on student transcripts because of our 3x3 schedule.
Monday, October 26 & Tuesday, October 27 - Faculty/staff return to campus orientation and health training (no classes). We will also be doing onsite COVID-19 testing for TMS employees.
Wednesday, October 28 through Friday, October 30th - Remote Learning
Monday, November 2 - Week of staggered cohort returns, small group meetings, PAS Bootcamp for 9th graders, and a mix of in-person and remote classes (schedule to come).
Remote or in-person format is TBD for the week of November 9 and beyond. The Thanksgiving holiday and Winter Break will remain the same as previously indicated.
Wednesday, November 25 - Sunday, November 29: Thanksgiving Holiday
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Along with the preparatory steps and “IF’s” listed above, another important consideration is the timing of our first semester midterms, which end on October 23rd.
This year, because of our 3x3 schedule, students will earn two final grades for each of the courses they take this semester. Students will receive one grade based on coursework completed from August 25th to October 23rd, and will receive a second grade for coursework completed between October 28th and the end of semester finals on January 20th, 2021. We have decided not to make an attempt to return for in-person learning until midterms have ended, so as not to interrupt student learning near the conclusion of an important term grade.
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Please, do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or concerns. We will communicate with our families every step of the way, so please keep in mind some of these things may change, and we will give you ample notice if they do.
We're in this together TMS!
Warmly,
Ben
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