Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Dear CMS Individual Lesson and Suzuki Families,
We are experiencing an unprecedented period, at least in my lifetime, of planned and pervasive social distancing. As of Wednesday, March 18, all St. Louis area schools are closing, as well as schools beyond the St. Louis region. Many businesses are telling employees to work at home. Travel is curtailed, as are large gatherings. This is all in a massive, joint effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus and keep our community safe and healthy.
With that in mind, the Community Music School is temporarily ending all in-person lessons after the CMS spring break.
There will be no in-person individual/Suzuki instruction from Monday, March 23-Sunday, April 5, 2020. This represents two weeks of instruction.
During this time, our CMS faculty members who teach Individual and/or Suzuki lessons will be moving to online lessons or will reschedule your lessons for the two weeks between the spring and summer sessions.
With your children home from school and with the uncertainty in our present environment, we are committed to continuing music instruction. Children will find security in the routine and in staying connected to their teacher. This is a special relationship and very comforting. It is important to keep music in their lives now more than ever and I know you will be looking for activities for your kids while they are home from school.
Likewise, CMS faculty members look forward to working with their students. They also depend on this source of income. Many faculty members have already lost income due to cancelled performances and other closings. Please keep our faculty members in mind as we work together to continue instruction and limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Online instruction:
Our dedicated CMS faculty members are researching and learning new technologies for online lessons. They range from FaceTime to Skype to Zoom and more. Your teacher will contact you this week to share the direction they are going and to work with you to get set-up for online lessons. Please know that our CMS Staff is poised to help as well. It will be important to have a practice session before your actual lesson in order to work out issues such as access, receptivity, lighting and background noise.
Please be patient with your teacher as this is a completely new area for many of us. Your assistance and that of our tech savvy students will provide an important partnership for success. In fact, it has really been fun and eye opening for those of us doing this for the first time. We will follow up this message with hints and recommendations for success.
Rescheduling lessons:
If for some reason online lessons are not possible for your teacher, (s)he will contact you to develop a plan for rescheduling the missed lessons between spring and summer sessions. During that time, they will stay in touch with messages to guide home practice time and encourage your students to keep the music playing!
My sincere thanks for working with us to complete the semester with everyone healthy and thriving through music!
Sincerely,
Carol Commerford, Director
Community Music School of Webster University
