As we look forward to school starting in the fall, Clairbourn is set to open in August with all students on campus. We are grateful for our large campus with enough room to space students as recommended.
We have been in planning meetings with Pasadena area school heads, California schools, national advisors and local health and safety experts to ensure we are ready, yet flexible, under the current changing situation. In all of our thinking and planning, the health and safety of our students, families, and employees comes first, followed closely by ensuring we are fulfilling our mission of educating the children in our care. These are the guiding principles under which all of our decisions and planning efforts are made.
What is likely to be different and what will stay the same?
- We are likely to do a health screening (for adults and children) before allowing entrance to the campus and will likely restrict visitors to campus. These screenings may include temperature checks and other screening questions. We are likely to require masks for all students and adults on campus except when eating or during outdoor exercise when physical spacing is maintained.
- Lunches must be sent with your child at the start of school or ordered from Choice Lunch. Our milk program will now be through Choice Lunch in order to minimize vendors on campus.
- At this time, we don’t feel we can meet the requirements for morning or afternoon daycare. As daycare is typically needed by students from different grades, it is in conflict with the guidance of keeping our groups of students separated from each other.
- At this time, we don’t feel we can meet the requirements for our After School Sports Program and After School Enrichment Classes, as these require outside visitors as well as mixed groups. As soon as the restrictions surrounding these activities are lifted and that guidance changes, we will again offer these programs.
- We will continue holding our daily Morning Assembly for Kindergarten - 8th grade students. As an established and important part of our school culture, and knowing that students benefit from this experience in so many ways, we can still gather online together as a community from our individual classrooms even though we won’t be able to gather in the same building. Students will now announce daily messages and present the Chapel portion of the meeting through streaming to each classroom. This will maintain our sense of family and community while also maintaining our distance.
- We will likely have students stay in their home classrooms and have specialist teachers come to them in order to minimize interactions with other spaces and students. To support this, we have installed Apple TVs in each room and provided laptops to the teachers to make their programs mobile.
These changes listed above will allow the students to participate in the fullest program we are able offer at the moment while reducing risk to all.
Please note that even though we are ready for school to start on campus, we are also planning for other possibilities should the situation change.
The contingency planning falls into three basic categories:
- All students are present on campus using appropriate health and safety measures
- Some students are present while others learn remotely (on-site learning in shifts, staggered schedules, or in cohorts of small groups)
- All students learn remotely
