Planning for In-Person Learning at GMS
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Greetings!
We hope you and your family are doing well. We opened Summer Camp earlier this month and are delighted to have children back on campus. Their friendships, laughter, and joy bring us hope for a wonderful year ahead, even with the challenges of COVID-19.
Earlier today, Governor Roy Cooper announced the state's plan to open public schools this fall under the state's "Plan B: Moderate Social Distancing." This plan limits the density of people in public school facilities (and transportation vehicles) to no greater than 50% maximum occupancy to ensure social distancing of at least 6 feet apart between people.
During our May Head of School Huddles, we shared our
own scenario-based planning for the fall, including three plans – A, B, and C – which are wholly independent and different from the state's three plans (which also happen to be named A, B, and C). Today's announcement from the Governor validates the work we have been doing to prepare ourselves, our campus, and our operations for in-person learning this fall.
We continue to plan an in-person start to the school year on Wednesday, August 19 under Greensboro Montessori School's Plan A. During Plan A, we are also offering concurrent remote learning for students who are required to go home for sickness or to quarantine per guidelines set forth by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. It is also available for families who remain fully enrolled but prefer their children continue to learn from home.
We invite you to join us for our July Head of School Huddles, which will further explore Plan A. We will have open dialogue about our concurrent remote learning program, our health and safety protocols, and our back-to-school communications. Event details and registration links are provided below.
I hope to see many of you at the upcoming Huddles and look forward to our ongoing conversation. As always, if you are experiencing a financial hardship due to COVID-19 that threatens your continued enrollment at our School,
email me, so we can find time to talk.
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Dr. Kevin Navarro
Head of School
P.S. During our June Head of School Huddle, we received a great idea for sharing product reviews from our parents. Our first parent-submitted review is included below.
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July Head of School Huddles
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We are offering a lunchtime, evening, and morning Huddle so these conversations are accessible to any family who's interested in participating. To ensure the intimacy and personalized experience of each Huddle, registration is limited to 30 participants. If all three Huddles fill up, we will add a fourth Huddle. Please
email Jillian Crone with any registration questions.
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Lunchtime Huddle
Thursday, July 23
Noon to 1:30 p.m.
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Evening Huddle
Thursday, July 23
8:30 to 10 p.m.
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Morning Huddle
Friday, July 24
9 to 10:30 a.m.
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This product review is submitted by Greensboro Montessori School parent, Lauren Nagel, and her 3-year-old son, August. Lauren has no affiliation with Suds2Go and receives no compensation or free product from her review.
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Suds2Go is advertised as the “first portable hand-washing system” and is essentially a stainless steel water bottle with a soap reservoir and pump attached. To use this, you just dispense some soap from the attached reservoir onto the hands, scrub, and then pour the water in the bottle over the hands to rinse.
Pros:
- Works as advertised, allows for full hand-washing on the go
- Can fill it with your child’s favorite foaming soap (ours is an orange ginger scent)
- Fits in your cupholder
- Can be odorless with unscented soap and may be more sensory-friendly than hand sanitizer
- Non-toxic, BPA-free container
- Low waste, uses nothing disposable
Cons:
- Water only lasts about one hand washing
- Pricey at $36.99, you could essentially keep a bottle of water and a bottle of soap in your car and achieve the same goal, though less elegantly
- Requires water reservoir to be refilled after each use
- More bulky and heavy than a bottle of hand sanitizer
The Verdict:
This a convenient thing to have in your car cupholder to use after a "germy" activity or before eating. I have had a lot of success using this with my 3-year-old son who refuses to use “stinky, burning” hand sanitizer. With the FDA seeing an increase in hand sanitizer products that have tested positive for methanol contamination, I was looking for a different option, especially since my son sometimes sucks on his fingers. We also know that hand-washing is more effective than hand sanitizer in germ reduction, so this may be a good option for many children. If you have more than one child, you will need to carry extra water (there is plenty of soap in the reservoir) or invest in more than one of these. Otherwise it is a very handy thing to have and something I will hang onto even post-pandemic!
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Greensboro Montessori School
2856 Horse Pen Creek Road, Greensboro, NC 27410
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