Keystone Communique

Note to the Keystone Community: This is our final summer issue. The regular Communiqué resumes Aug. 21 and will continue weekly through the school year.

Ready for school?

Put the finishing touches on summer reading and projects, make sure you have all your supplies and get your workspace at home ready to go -- it's almost time for the first day of school.

Classes start at 8:30am on Wednesday, August 19. Don't miss it!

Students meet teachers, pick up supplies

Students at Little School and Lower School came to campus Friday to meet their teachers and pick up supplies for the first few weeks of classes. All with appropriate physical distancing, of course.

Distribution Day for the Middle School is Aug. 17 and for the Upper School is Aug. 18.

Ideally, we'll be able to come back to campus just after Labor Day. Let's hope for good news from San Antonio Metro Health.

Click here for a slideshow of the different Distribution Days. (The page will be updated until Aug. 18.)

When can students return to campus?

From Mr. Handmaker:

As we approach the first day of school, many of you have asked a key question: What metrics will we use to decide on opening the campus to in-person learning and do we have an estimate on when students can return?

We will follow closely the just-released metrics for schools from the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District. They are:

The amount of time it takes for the number of COVID-19 cases to double, an indicator of how quickly cases are increasing. The recommended rate is 18 days; San Antonio is currently doubling the number of cases every 24 days, so relatively speaking, we’re heading in the right direction.
Positivity rate (the proportion of positive test results out of the total number of tests) at less than 5%. Currently we are at 12.7%, so we have a ways to go.
A decline in coronavirus cases for two consecutive weeks. We have not yet reached this milestone.

You can look up these metrics on a Metro Health dashboard: https://covid19.sanantonio.gov/About-COVID-19/Dashboards-Data/Progress-Warning-Indicators

While we monitor these metrics, we will continue to consult with our Medical Advisory Committee and our Safety Committee on whether we can safely bring students back to campus after Labor Day. This is our hope, but as you well know, this is a fluid situation and much depends on what is happening in San Antonio in general.

We will also continue to analyze whether we can bring younger students back daily while their older schoolmates pursue hybrid learning. Some research has shown that the rate of transmission may be lower among children younger than 10 years old, while students older than 10 may have a rate similar to adults.

As we have done up to now, we will also watch what happens in other school districts and other states and countries as they reopen their schools.

There are many variables and possibilities that the coming weeks could bring. Our goal has not changed: we want to bring students back to campus as soon as possible, but in a way that is safe for them, for families, and for the faculty/staff. In addition, our approach to decision-making has not altered; we will base our decision on the most up to date scientific and medical information.

For now, we continue to prepare for distance learning and ensuring the campus is ready for an eventual return in person. We look forward to meeting you face-to-face when that day arrives.

With hope,

Billy

William B. Handmaker

Head of School

Congratulations to Dr. Arnold!

A big congratulations to Art Teacher Mrs. Arnold, who now takes the title of Dr. Arnold.

She recently earned her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

New science teacher presenting activities with Hardberger Park

Our new middle school science teacher, Ms. Sobieszczyk, will present fun activities with science and nature at the Phil Hardberger conservatory on Saturday morning.

Catch her on Facebook Live at 10am on Aug. 15.

For more information and to catch her presentation, click here.

Keystone community responding to pandemic

Members of the Keystone community are living out the school's pillars of Community Involvement and Responsible Leadership by launching or supporting fundraisers to help organizations involved in the pandemic. We'll include them on the Keystone website at: https://www.keystoneschool.org/covid-19. Click on the "fundraising efforts" tab.

Support Keystone while you shop

If you're getting school supplies or adding to your home office from either Office Max or Office Depot, please mention Keystone. As part of the Give Back to Schools program, the stores give 5% of the purchase price of qualifying school supplies in credits to Keystone for office supplies. Be sure to include the school's ID number when you make your purchase. Keystone's school number is: 70100727.

If you're purchasing items from Amazon, please consider supporting Keystone with your purchases and use AmazonSmile. Just designate Keystone as the beneficiary and a portion of your purchases will go to the school.

Make sure to install the Smilematic browser extension. It works with Firefox, Chrome and Safari and automatically redirects users to AmazonSmile when they visit Amazon. Here's the tool: https://couponfollow.com/smilematic.

We want to hear from you!

If you have news to share about the students, alumni, faculty or staff at Keystone School, please send it to: etijerina@keystoneschool.org.

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