November 17, 2021
Dear Members of the St. Mark’s Community,
Our Health and Safety Task Force met during the last week to review our overall risks as we head into Thanksgiving break and beyond. Specifically, we reexamined our plan for mask-wearing to gauge potential for a change to our policy before January 1. Our consultants at EH&E presented an option for moving forward which they feel is feasible given the risk mitigation currently in place, including our nearly 99 percent student vaccination rate and our air exchange rates for our indoor spaces.
EH&E agreed we have a material change from a risk standpoint given the amount of time since our previous series of positive cases in our community and agreed we can move forward with an alternate approach to timing for making mask-wearing optional. After reassessing our overall risk, they agreed with the suggested changes below.
- We will continue to require masks indoors until the end of academic obligations on Saturday, November 20. At that time, the School will move to a mask-optional trial period. This means that masks will be optional during athletics on the afternoon of November 20.
- The School will conduct PCR testing for our community upon the return from Thanksgiving break. Masks will be worn by all members of our community when indoors—including in residential houses outside of rooms, as well as for all indoor athletics practices—until the results of those tests are received. Masks are not required when a student is in their room alone or with only their roommate.
- If all test results are negative, then we will move to a mask-optional trial period that day. The exact date will depend on the speed of the lab’s test results.
- If any results are positive, we will move forward with the mask-optional period once contact tracing is done, unless there is a more significant or material number of positive cases. This is due to the fact our risks are lowered by the contact tracing process.
- For the weeks between Thanksgiving and winter break, we will continue with our mask-optional trial period. During the trial period, should a significant outbreak of positive cases occur or other material risks become evident, we may need to return to requiring masks indoors.
- We will continue with the plan for weekly PCR testing for our entire community until the December break.
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For our visitors to campus, we will continue to enforce our current Visitor Policy. We will continue to require all visitors to wear masks while indoors and complete the health attestation before or at arrival. After partnering with Director of Admission Anne Behnke, we will require our admission tour guides to also wear a mask during tours on campus when indoors as well. We will also continue to hold on allowing visitors into our dormitories until we reassess this again in December or early January.
- Also, per EH&E recommendations, for the small number of unvaccinated students on our campus, we will provide PCR testing twice a week, as well as three additional antigen tests, for a total of five tests a week. This will allow these students to not be required to wear a mask while indoors, including for indoor athletics or any other indoor activities. For athletics games, we would conduct a day-of-game antigen test. These students may remain unmasked during the competition and at all other times along with all others during the mask-optional trial period.
- Finally, we remain on schedule for resuming seated meals in January, and the current model of two lunch shifts will also remain in effect through December.
We are cognizant of the fact that this change in our protocols is a shift from the previous plan. However, after carefully analyzing the recommendations from our consultants, working closely with Athletics, Admission and other departments, our task force agreed we are able to safely move forward with this new approach.
