October 10, 2020
Dear WHWS Families,
Fall has arrived and our class teachers are completing their first main lesson blocks and reflecting back over the first four weeks of school. We have all been so impressed by how well our community has been able to work with new safety procedures. Our arrival screening processes have gone very smoothly, and teachers unanimously report that students are consistently and respectfully following classroom safety protocols. Mask wearing has not been a problem, and we all agree that even being able to spend a couple of hours a week together has supported and inspired both students and teachers.
The Pedagogical Committee and teachers have been working closely with our Health and Safety Committee to determine the next steps in bringing more in-classroom learning to our students. With the guidance of the Health Department and medical professionals, the Health and Safety Committee has given us the green light to increase the size of our classroom cohorts and allow students more time on campus. As you can imagine, teachers are thrilled at the prospect of spending more in-person time with their students!
STEP ONE
Our first step in this process will begin right away as class teachers work with families towards increasing the size of existing class cohorts. Classrooms have been approved for the following capacities with 6’ physical distancing:
- Grades 1 - 4 classrooms can accommodate 10 students
- Grades 5 & 6 classrooms can accommodate 11 students
- Grades 7 & 8 classrooms can accommodate 12 students
Classroom cohorts will remain strictly within these approved classroom capacity numbers. We realize that asking some of you to switch days after only a month may not be convenient, but we ask for your patience and understanding as we navigate this challenging process. We will endeavor to support families in having siblings attend on the same days where possible.
Due to enrollment numbers, some of our classes will have two cohort groups, and other classes will have one. Moving to larger cohort groups will make it easier for us to add additional cohort days - which will be our next step!
STEP TWO
Our Health and Safety team will continuously and closely monitor the health of our school community and track Whatcom County Covid data. As long as things go well, we plan to double cohort days for grades classes by October 26. This will mean that each student cohort is on campus two days per week instead of one.
For the time being, cohorts will continue to come to school in the afternoons in order to limit the number of students on our campus at one time. (Our first graders and EC classes will continue to meet in the mornings.) Each cohort will come to class from 1 - 3pm either on Mondays & Wednesdays or Tuesdays & Thursdays.
At this stage, classroom cohort teaching time will include academic content and teaching directly related to current main lesson work. Teachers will be making some adjustments to their Google Classroom lesson plans to allow for the additional in person learning time and related assignments. Our students will be working in classrooms with recommended upgrades to our ventilation systems, and mask breaks will be provided outside as needed.
NEXT STEPS
Our next goals will be to move all cohorts to the morning and to increase the length of time our students are on campus. Dates of implementation will be informed by careful monitoring by our Health and Safety team. They will be working with the Department of Health to evaluate the larger cohorts and monitor how additional days on campus are going.
We hope you are as encouraged as we are in making these next steps towards increased in-person learning. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out to your class teacher or to contact us directly using the email addresses below.
Warmly,
