Response to COVID -19

Greetings Families:

For the past 10 months the COVID pandemic has meant the closing of almost all in-person learning across this country. Now that there are two vaccines in distribution schools are being asked to consider their re-opening plans with the goal to resume in-person learning as quickly as possible while following CDC, State, and City guidance around keeping students, their families, and our staff safe.

As you might already know, City Schools has just announced their plans to re-open many of the elementary schools on a limited capacity basis, beginning with phase 1 in mid-February and with phase 2 expanding the number of grade levels where in-person learning could take place for additional grade-levels. BCPSS leadership has given the Charter Schools the autonomy to make the decision if they want to opt in to phase 1 or if they would prefer to delay re-opening for in-person learning, understanding that Charter schools have to work within different parameters than traditional schools.

After careful review of our school’s model, the limitations we have with space, and surveying both families and staff, we have decided to wait until later this year to resume in-person learning. We know everyone has the goal to return to the building and we want to make sure that when this happens, we are protecting the health and safety of every member of our community.

We did not come to this decision lightly. We know many families need schools to reopen so that they can return to their own regular routines. We also know that until a majority of people in our community have received the vaccine there are some families and staff who have let me know they prefer to wait for in-person learning to resume. Decisions such as these are hard and at New Song we try and include as many voices in the decision making process as we can. As things change over the next few weeks, we will continue to seek out your thoughts, your needs, and your voice.

On Tuesday, January 19th our Executive Director and I will hold a listening session for families (virtually) where you can ask questions, share thoughts and concerns, and hear about our plans for how to continue to support our students.