Important Announcement in Response to COVID-19, March 12, 2020

3/12/2020

Collegiate will commence remote learning effective Monday, March 23. In addition, all School activities will be canceled beginning Friday, March 13, for an indefinite period of time.

Dear Collegiate Families,

Over the break, we convened as a cross-functional group to meet and address Collegiate’s planning and response to COVID-19. Our priority remains the health and safety of our Collegiate community and continuity of our academic program. We feel compelled to do our best to slow the spread of COVID-19. In keeping with my earlier promise of timely and proactive messaging,

I write to share that Collegiate will suspend all regularly scheduled events starting Friday, March 13, including child care and extended day care, for an indefinite period of time. We will commence remote learning effective Monday, March 23, and continue through at least Friday, April 3. Limited staff will be on campus to maintain critical operations. All deliveries to campus will be coordinated through the Business Office.

Our faculty and staff will begin meeting this weekend as we practice and work toward our shared goal of high-quality, subject-specific and developmentally appropriate remote learning. Although we have no knowledge of any active cases of COVID-19 in our Collegiate community, we feel this pivot to remote learning is the most prudent decision for us to make. We are driven by our goals to safeguard the health of students, faculty and staff and to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in an effort to protect our communities. We have set up a COVID-19 Awareness and Information page where all of our communications and any future real-time updates will be posted. We encourage you to bookmark this page.

During this time, when we pull together with the greater world, we are appreciative of your continued partnership as the Collegiate community. The remainder of this letter will provide some, but not all, of our programming details. Detailed follow-up information from Academic Leadership regarding remote learning will be sent by Tuesday, March 17.

COLLEGIATE’S RESPONSES

Remote Learning. Our aforementioned educational goal for remote learning is to provide personalized attention and a continuity of learning for our students. This will be specific to the developmental needs of our population and your student’s course of study. Our academic leaders and faculty members are collaborating with this goal in mind. I am very grateful for the capacity and dedication of my professional colleagues to ensure quality and responsiveness. During the upcoming week, we recommend you continue to think about spaces and needs for online learning in your home. No matter one's age, building new routines and sticking to them — from sleep schedules, physical activity and time spent in nature — will help you and your child feel a sense of routine and normalcy during this unprecedented time.

Travel/Extracurricular Cancellations. Decisions about student trips and activities in the future will be heavily influenced by CDC travel guidance. Due to the rapidly evolving nature of this situation, we will be monitoring and evaluating each event on a frequent basis. We will notify you, our parents and students, of any changes or future cancellations as soon as decisions are made. We will also do our best to negotiate refunds with third parties for any payments already made toward upcoming trips.

If your child was scheduled for an overnight/multiday trip out of town, we have contacted you about cancellations. If you have questions, please contact your child’s division head.

Social Distancing. We want to be sure you understand that the purpose of campus closure is to create “social distancing” in an effort to slow or stop the spread of COVID-19. While it is difficult to have our children out of school and with less “to do,” we urge you to consider the underlying reason for “social distancing.” U.S. Health Experts Say Stricter Measures Are Required to Limit Coronavirus’s Spread

In keeping with this recommendation, we are suspending all school-related events for all grades, whether performing arts, athletics or auxiliary. In our efforts to cooperate with “social distancing,” our facilities will not be available. Simply said, if we are not holding school, we are not promoting group gatherings either on or off campus.

How We Will Communicate With You. As mentioned above, we have set up a COVID-19 Awareness and Information page that will serve as a central place for parents and students to visit for ongoing updates. You can find this page by clicking “COVID-19 Updates” under “Our School” on the Collegiate homepage or on the News “ticker” on Collegiate’s homepage.

We will include updates in the Weekly Paws that goes out every Sunday afternoon. I will also continue to send important schoolwide updates, as appropriate, and your child's division heads, advisors and teachers will continue regular communications. We will do our best to streamline communications and balance our needs for timely communication when appropriate.

Changes In remote learning will be treated similar to a weather-related closing. You will receive an email and text message (if we have your number in our system). We will also post updates on our website as well as on our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter social media accounts. Along with this emailed communication, you should receive an alert via email and text that we are moving to remote learning and to check your email for more details about this decision.

DETAILS FOR YOUR PREPARATION

Make Sure We Have Your Updated Contact Information. We recently asked that families update their contact information in case of a weather-related event, but it never hurts to double check that we have your most up-to-date information. If you have not yet enrolled in the School’s emergency notification system or need to update your contact information or your 7th-12th Grade student’s information, please do so in Collegiate’s PawNet website portal. Log in and click on your name in the upper right corner, then click “Profile” in the drop-down menu. Make sure to include a wireless number in the correct field in order to receive text messages.

Follow CDC and U.S. Department of State Guidance Related to Travel. We encourage all families who have upcoming professional or personal travel scheduled to follow CDC travel guidance. This guidance may include avoiding non-essential travel or self-quarantine recommendations. The U.S. Department of State also maintains an updated list of travel advisories by country.

Talk to Your Children. We realize this may be a worrisome time for you and your children. Fortunately, there are many helpful resources available on how to talk with children about COVID-19. This is also an important time to teach and remind children about healthy hygiene and ways to remain well in mind and body.

Remind Students to Keep Laptops and Textbooks With Them. If your student did not bring home their materials (i.e., laptops, books, etc.), please email their division head.

In closing, please know that we remain committed to partnering with all of our families to maintain a safe and healthy school community. We understand that closing our campus to you is counter-cultural and complicated for our families. Collegiate is a community innately driven to have and nurture in-person connections. We know this decision creates hardships for you and your children. It was not made lightly and creates sad feelings for me and my colleagues. I have no doubt that our community will prove to be stronger than we imagine; for we are founded on a vision of community and responsible citizenship. We are stronger in partnership; please reach out with ideas, questions or concerns. Once again, we thank you for your ongoing support.

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