October 25, 2020
Dear Prince Families: As we begin our eleventh week of school, the students, faculty, and staff continue to perform admirably. I remain in routine communication with the private and public school administrators in our area, and we are hosting a group of them on our campus this week for a “COVID-19 lessons learned” meeting. Unquestionably, we have fared better than most schools with only four positive student cases to date. Thus, we are making no changes to our current procedures in view of our success to date and the increased number of positive student COVID-19 cases at other schools in our service area.
Our selection of what social events to hold on campus continues to be done with great care. Outdoor events provide more social distancing and thus increased safety thresholds (athletic events, used uniform sale, annual fund kickoff, etcetera). Indoor events like parent lunches at school (demasked activity, thus higher risk), Veterans and Grandparents’ Day (older, higher risk populations), etcetera, are not being held to lower risk/exposure.
Following our introduction of multiple, multifaceted procedural and schedule changes in what is customarily a fine-tuned machine, we are just now getting into what I consider a productive, comfortable cadence of teaching and learning. In hindsight, we made the right decision to open the school in the midst of incomplete (and sometimes inaccurate) information. We will continue to make informed and decisive decisions and slowly add more activities while consulting our medical advisory team as appropriate. Let’s have a great week, and please come to our annual fund kickoff concert tomorrow night!
With warm regards,