LREI@home Update #13

1. First, the answer to the question above depends on your identity and that of your child/children. For families of color, and I am making an assumption here, many have ongoing discussions about race. For white families, again an assumption or maybe an educated guess, the percentage of families who have ongoing discussions about race and their family’s racial identity is likely lower. We who live in primarily white families have given ourselves the illusion of time to wait. We cause damage by doing so.
2. Now is the moment to start or to re-start this conversation. I don’t think those of us who assume we are not touched by race or bias because of skin color, age, or economic status can choose to protect our children from the facts of racial life in America any longer. It is important to remember that our children learn from what we don’t say as much as from what we do say.  
3. I imagine that what I feel now as a white man – the anger, fear, sadness, concern, and sense of powerlessness – is nothing compared to the ways in which many black and brown skinned people have these and/or other feelings every day. So maybe one answer to the question that was asked is, “Maybe these protests, maybe the rage you feel has brought you a little bit closer to knowing the rage of people who are criminalized due to their skin color, every day.”    
4. Do something. What?  
   • See #2 above.
   • Join a protest.
   • Learn and share your learning. There are many ways to deepen your understanding of race, of your race, of bias, and of your biases. At this point, learning is not enough. It has to translate to action, to change the patterns of our beings, and the lenses through which we consume news and judge the world.  
   • Learn and find ways to have this conversation with your kids. Learn and join an LREI affinity group next year. Learn and find ways to engage on a wider level. 
   • Respond when a friend or loved one questions the motivation of the protestors or the rights of people of color.
   • Call or email your elected officials.
   • Vote.
5. Protests? Should you allow your older children to attend protests? Given the centrality of the issue of race to our future, it seems hard to say, “No.” Given the actions taken by the authorities and the injuries to some participants, hard to say, “Yes.” Add a global pandemic on top of this and you have an incredibly fraught conversation/decision. This has to be left up to individual families to decide. Don’t hesitate to be in touch if we can help.
6. Join the appropriate one of these discussions:

• Resources for Talking about Race, Racism, and Racialized Violence with Kids
• Your Kids Aren’t Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup
• A guide to how you can support marginalized communities
• 100 Race Conscious Things You Can Say to Your Child to Advance Racial Justice
• The Dos and Dont’s of Talking to Kids of Color About White Supremacy
• Being Antiracist – To create an equal society, we must commit to making unbiased choices and being antiracist in all aspects of our lives.
• Embrace Race – Let’s Raise a Generation of Children Who Are Thoughtful, Informed, and Brave About Race.
• Raising Race Conscious Children  – “WHY BRING IT UP?” PUSHING BACK AGAINST WHITE SUPREMACY Excerpt:…the conversation about race and identity isn’t one 100-minute conversation. Thankfully, it’s more like “100 one-minute conversations.” 

• As I noted in my letter last Thursday, we are putting together a new program, LREIremote, that will support those families that are reluctant to return to NYC or who have a family health situation that precludes a fall return to continue on at LREI. If you would like me to add your name to the list of families to whom I will send more information about this program, please let me know ASAP.  

• This link will take you to the registration page for LREI Summer@home. You will find a long list of offerings for children of all ages, from the youngest right up through high school. There will be three two-week sessions, each class meeting each day, for a total of ten gatherings per class. Check it out!

• As you heard from Board Chair Jim Harris on Friday, we are turning our full fund raising attention to the emergency coronavirus relief effort, The LREI 360 Support Fund. There are families in our community whose lives and livelihoods have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. The LREI 360 Support Fund was created to help cover essential expenses, including food, rent, and healthcare. Additionally, we are now fielding unanticipated and unprecedented requests for tuition assistance for the next school year. Our school is here today because nearly 100 years ago, a group of parents gathered in a local ice cream parlor and pooled their funds to save it. We tell our students this story of our community’s resilience every Founders Day. We teach them to work together and care for one another. We see these values reflected in their actions inside the classroom, in the world around them, and now, via Zoom. At this time, we adults must also support one another. Your generosity shows that we are all in this together. You can make a gift here, via wire transfer, stock transfer, or at PayPal.me/lreinyc. 

LREI@home Update #12

I write today with an update on our plans for the coming year. As I begin, it is important to remember that while we have identified our goals, the details of our plans are still being determined and that the 10+ weeks between the end of the ‘19-’20 school year and the beginning of the ‘20-’21 school year may bring added complications or offer unforeseen opportunities, likely both.  

 

We are so proud of all that the students and teachers have accomplished during our weeks of LREI@home. The true learning that has happened in such an unfamiliar context is proof that when reinforced by our progressive mission the relationship between teachers and students and the relationship between the students and the material they are encountering can transcend the challenges of distance.  

 

Throughout our time operating as LREI@home, we have been actively preparing for the fall. We have participated in conversations and presentations with colleagues in other schools in NYC and beyond. We have joined with our professional networks to investigate the requirements of a return to the buildings and we have gathered information from governmental agencies, health departments, and informed friends of the school.  

 

We are planning on being in the school buildings, in person, on the first day of school in September 2020. In order to do this, we will have to make changes to our schedule, to space use, and to customs and procedures that are very much a part of who we are. A few preliminary specifics, though very much still a work in process:

• Lower school students will likely be in school for a full day. They will move about the building less than they have in the past, with teachers joining them in their classrooms instead.  
• Middle school students will also travel less and may have staggered start and dismissal times to keep the density of students in the middle school lower than in the past.  
• High school students will likely have a hybrid schedule – a mix of in-school instruction that will feel quite familiar and some days per week at home, participating online, again lowering the population in the building on any given day.
• Many meetings and presentations will be done online.
• Parents will have less access to the building and their children’s classroom(s).  
• We will minimize visitors.
• Large gatherings will be reorganized.

We will also institute a number of health and hygiene procedures. These will conform to the guidelines published by the Centers for Disease Control and other guidance we have received and will receive in the coming weeks. Our efforts in this area will be led by Ava Dawson, our lead nurse, and a frequent consultant to other schools on a variety of health topics, including reopening.  

• We will require hand washing several times per day.
• We will take student/adult temperatures at the beginning of every day. 
• We will reinforce the importance of staying home when sick, including extending the time of the required absence due to fever. 
• We are instituting new cleaning routines in all buildings.  

We will be following the requirements and recommendations of the CDC and the NYC Department of Health and we will communicate what they are before opening in the fall. This list of precautions and practices will continue to evolve in the coming weeks.

 

As you can see we are well on our way to a safe return in September. It is possible that our plans for an in-person return will be disrupted by NY State deciding to close schools again or by a prudent decision on our part if there is an emergent situation. We are also evaluating the experience of LREI@home over the past eight weeks in order to be prepared if we are required to move back to LREI@home at some point in the ‘20-’21 school year.  

 

A number of families have inquired about the possibility of remote learning for the whole year due to a reluctance to return to NYC or a family health situation. If you are in this category and we have yet to speak, please be in touch with me. 

 

I want to take a moment to thank the members of LREI’s Board of Trustees, all of whom have truly kept the school’s mission in trust during the past few months. Working with the Board’s Finance and Executive Committee, we are focused on protecting LREI’s financial health and, more importantly, the people in our community. There will be much asked of all members of the community as we move into and through the current economic disruption. Our goal is to minimize its impact on the people in the community and the parts of the educational program that are core to LREI’s mission. One thing is clear, our financial assistance budget line will have to expand significantly to accommodate a number of families whose finances have been compromised by the crisis. 

 

As I reflect on other times that challenged our school, both those that were of the natural world and those that were man-made, in each moment it is the school’s mission, its belief in the greater good, the care that we take in each other, in justice and equity, and our dedication to hard work and perseverance that has seen us through our troubles. This will be true in our current situation, as well. I have been humbled by the resilience, talent, and humanity that I have witnessed each day since the beginning of March. I expect to be no less moved and no less impressed in what our community will bring to the months to come.  

 

Finally, I invite you to a last live Community Conversation of the school year on Tuesday, June 9th, at 7:00 p.m. You will be able to find the Zoom link on the LREIConnect Resource Page.  

 

Do not hesitate to be in touch.

 

Peace and health,

 

—

Two Notes

 

Spring Concert

I invite all of you to join me for Friday evening’s Spring concert featuring LREI’s choral and instrumental ensembles.  You can join the concert’s premiere at 6:30 p.m.  I will send a link home on Friday. You can find a concert program at this link.

 

Summer Opportunities

Within a few days, we will be sending home a list of summer classes and activities taught by LREI faculty and staff.  There are opportunities for students of all ages.  Very exciting!

 

LREI@home Update #11

 

Dear LREI Community,

 

I hope this weekly message finds you well and finding meaning and comfort in our very challenging time. As always, please do not hesitate to be in touch if you need our support in any way at all.

 

I set out this school year to write a series of messages focused on essential components of LREI’s mission. Thus far I have written two of these pieces. The first focused on the school’s mission overall and the second shared thoughts on what Bryan Stevenson calls, “Getting proximate.”  The third, today’s, I began writing in February with a focus on the school’s equity, inclusion, and social justice mission.

 

After beginning quarantine and LREI@home I re-read my earlier draft which almost overnight had become both more and less relevant. As I re-examined my thoughts I realized that I did not have to look too far to find current examples of ways in which the issues of race, ethnicity, geography, and class have played out in the patterns of exposure, illness, healthcare, and mortality in our coronavirus world.

Earlier in the school year, we had several parent gatherings focused on the NY Times’s 1619 Project during which we discussed this dynamic investigation into, and explication of, the systemic racism that grew out of that moment in 1619 when the first enslaved African was dragged onto the shores of North America. Today we see tentacles of this heritage playing out in the patterns of who is getting sick, who can access healthcare, where resources are plentiful and where not, employment/unemployment, transportation, who is living, and who is dying.  We see similar ignorance and bigotry with where blame is being placed for the situation in which we find ourselves. While there are tragedy and grief enough for all identities to feel the virus’s impact, there are current patterns that conform to those that are all too familiar from the old normal.

 

In order for your children to truly integrate their growing store of skills and content area knowledge into their widening understanding of the complex world in which we live, they have to be able to acknowledge and have an ever-deepening understanding of the origins of the ways in which our society operates. This is why, in large part, as a progressive school we teach “social studies” and not simply history in our lower and middle school divisions, and why our high school history classes focus on past, present, and future. Investigating past events is important – seeing them in relation to those that came before and those that came after. Examining these events, these people, these places in context is an essential companion. To understand how these events impact the now, to understand how we can use history to chart a brighter future, requires a deep understanding of the relationships between the people involved and of the systems within which they lived and live.

 

In Democracy and Education, John Dewey, American philosopher, and Elisabeth Irwin’s mentor, wrote that the “state” must face, “the tendencies due to present economic conditions which split society into classes some of which are made merely tools for the higher culture of others.”  He continued: “…the question is concerned with the reconciliation of national loyalty, of patriotism, with superior devotion to the things which unite men in common ends, irrespective of national political boundaries.”

 

If the “undoing” of the systems that divide and oppress, the undoing of all that we see playing out every day in the country’s struggle with the coronavirus and yet another race driven murder, for example, is the responsibility of the “state,” than schools are the tools through which we can provide opportunities for children to grapple with these issues as they move into the majority and become a part of Dewey’s “state.” Examining our world in an honest fashion with students of all ages is essential if the children are to lead us to a future that does not repeat the sins of our collective past.

 

LREI’s program leverages all that children learn in school and examines it within the context of the real world in all of its beauty and ugliness. The goal is to set the children on a path towards active citizenship, in service to their own needs and dreams and, hopefully equally so, to those of their fellow humans.

 

Acknowledging that we, as an institution, are part of the world, shaped by it and responsible for it, LREI will continue to examine its own principles and practices, division by division, office by office, to make sure that we are truly providing the full LREI experience to all students and families regardless of identity. We have made significant changes to the ways in which we operate and will continue to grow and change, just as we ask our students to do.

 

Our hope is that the community of adults will challenge itself to grow alongside the community of children. The adult LREI community has to do this work in order to relate effectively to each other and so that we can support our children as they grow into a world we can hardly imagine. If we model a deep and abiding respect for all, for our shared humanity, we will provide yet another example from which our children can learn. This work happens every day at LREI and has grown in the recent past and continues even though we are separated. We must make sure it continues in the future.

 

We are convinced that through our program your children will learn more deeply, connect more honestly, and understand the world more clearly and critically. They will not be consigned to a future that is reminiscent of the past nor modeled solely on their present. They will be able to work towards a future that is honest and just and of their own design.

 

At this moment, the vast majority of Americans believe in the need for mutual care, that we are all in this together; that wearing masks and staying inside, that forgoing our individual wants for our collective needs, is best for each and all. Will we allow ourselves to leverage these generous beliefs in this moment of naked inequality and bias?  Will we see our current state as one of opportunity and move to a place where the vast majority of us believe, and act upon the belief, that what is best for each of us is best for all of us, not just when it comes to masks, but also in education and healthcare and housing and economic opportunity, and on and on? Can we come together around the idea that if we each work for justice we will all be saved?

 

A final thought for today. Much of LREI’s work on this front has, for the past 13 years, been inspired and led by our director of equity and community, Dr. Sandra Chapman. As you know, Chap will be leaving LREI at the end of the school year. We are grateful for all that Chap has inspired us to accomplish during her time at LREI. We will miss her wisdom, her deep knowledge, her work ethic, her devotion to a just future, and the faith that she has in children. Leading this work is hard. Chap doesn’t try to make it look easy, rather she models perseverance. She has taught us that if something is truly right, you must never give up. It is important to acknowledge that the bulk of Chap’s time was spent leading efforts that may well be a life’s work. I think she would say that we can become a more just school and that we can be part of a more just society AND that this will be hard AND that there will always be more to do. Inspired by Chap, we will strive for justice. We will ask all to participate. We will keep on.

 

WOYAYA (click to listen)

By Osibisa

 

We are going

Heaven knows where we are going,

But we know within

 

And we will get there

Heaven knows how we will get there

But we know we will. 

 

It will be hard we know

And the road will be muddy and rough

But we’ll get there

Heaven knows how we will get there

But we know we will. 

 

Woyaya*…

 

*Woyaya means “we keep going” in a Ghanaian language called Ga.

 

Peace,

 

 

[If you are interested, you can find the first two mission-focused messages on my blog, Get Your Phil, at LREI.org.  The first was published on November 22, 2019 and the second on January 23, 2020.

 

 

 

LREI@home Update #10

LREI@home Update #9

• How can we help the students of the future get as close as possible to the experiences we are having now?

• What is your everyday life like under quarantine?

• What extraordinary things happened to you or to others around you that would not have during ordinary times?

• Photographs
• Video
• Artwork (drawing, painting, collage, sculpture, etc.)
• Writing (journal, poem, story, etc.)
• Letter to your future self or to future LREI students
• Audio (song, Moth-type stories, etc.)
• Oral history interview (on your phone or via StoryCorps connect)
• Map (of your house, of your new, smaller world)
• Recipe (what is your quarantine comfort food?)

LREI@home Update #8

Dear LREI Families, 

 

A second note from me this week. Thanks to the principals for allowing me to write on their day. More importantly, thank you to the principals for their work every day and, of course, to the teachers for their incredible work with our children in these very challenging circumstances. (Check out this beautiful video homage to the teachers’ work with your students.)

 

If you were unable to join yesterday’s community conversation, you can watch the video here.  If you have questions after watching this video, please do not hesitate to be in touch.  

 

As you know, on our way out of the buildings in mid-March we had to cancel this year’s celebration of Founders Day. Here is a synopsis for those unfamiliar with the events through which we celebrate Elisabeth Irwin. Each year on the Friday before Spring Break the children spend time with their buddies, attend our annual Founders Day assembly, and have an ice cream treat. The ice cream, again for the uninitiated, helps us to commemorate the moment when Little Red School House families gathered in an ice cream parlor to drum up support for Miss Irwin’s “experiment” during its transition from a public school to an independent school.  

 

The centerpiece of the assembly is the Founders Day play, written by former colleague Meryl Danziger. The play has villains and heroines, drama, and humor. It is an exciting and downright stirring story about intelligence, creativity, passion, and a drive to have an impact on the world. And, for the past few years, it has had music. Each year, Elisabeth Irwin (a.k.a Suzanne Cohen, seventh grade humanities teacher) has written a song to enliven the drama. Last year, Suzanne invited the then student body president to join her in this performance.  She had planned to do the same this year.  And then…. canceled. Not so fast. Thanks to the magic of digital technology, Suzanne and student body president Michelle Mardones were able to perform their duet so that we are all able to enjoy a slice of this year’s Founders Day play.  

 

Thank you, Suzanne and Michelle. So generous of you to share this with us. You are wonderful.

 

Click on the image below and sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!

Be well, 

 

LREI@home Update #7

Dear LREI Community,

LREI@home Update #6

LREI@home Update #5
April 27, 2020

• • Lower School –  Tuesday, May 5, 5:00 PM| Faith’s Room 
  • Middle School – Tuesday, April 28, 5:30 PM | Ana’s Room  
  • High School –    Monday, May 4, 5:30 PM| Allison’s Room 

 

LREI@home Update #4

Dear LREI Community,

 

I trust that you are well and that your family and friends are healthy. Please be sure to contact me or whoever at LREI with whom you are most comfortable speaking if there is anything we can do to support your family.

 

Wednesday is Earth Day. Not just any Earth Day, it is the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day. Check out EarthDay.org for all sorts of really interesting information and for a fascinating history of the day. I can imagine that if we were able to move about safely many of us, and surely many of the students, would be planning on taking some sort of action on Wednesday – protesting, learning, teaching.

 

Certainly, LREI’s Sustainable LREI committee would have invited us to participate in some gathering. (Follow SustainableLREI on Instagram at “sustainablelrei.”) Alas, we are not able to go out, to gather, to join together with one voice in defense of our home. So what to do?

 

Here are a few thoughts from me (and know that I am not an expert) on how you can use your time at home to observe Earth Day (and every other day). At LREI we don’t serve meat on Mondays. Meat production comes with a significant environmental cost.  Decreasing meat production would have a positive environmental impact. That said, there are ways to mitigate the impact that eating meat has on the environment and meat is an important part of many people’s diets.  This is a complex issue. If you are of the mind, it is worth contemplating.

 

Looking for simple rules regarding diet?  Michael Pollan has three:

• • Eat food.  (Less processed and closest to the way you find it at its source.)
  • Not too much. 
  • Mostly plants.
  • (He also has another list with 83 rules.  If you are interested you can find it on the web.  Google it.)

• Energy – Conserve energy any way you can.  (No, I don’t mean by sitting and doing nothing all day!) The impact of nonrenewable energy use may be the most important issue on which to focus.
• Transportation – Consider the ways you move about. Energy used in transportation has a significant impact on the environment. How can you minimize the energy you use moving from place to place? This is a hard one.
• Think about what is important to you in terms of the environment and climate change and factor these into the ways you engage politically.
• I have included a list of suggestions from the high school’s environmental club. Good ideas, all.

It is important to remember that whether we are talking about coronavirus (not unrelated to a number of environmental issues) or climate change, there is a significant intersection with equity and justice. The results of climate change impact the marginalized to a greater degree and with fewer options for ameliorating them than for those whose power and privilege excuse them to some degree from current and impending challenges.  Options and possibilities for healthier living and choices that create a sustainable future are also not equally available.

 

For many, these days of quarantine allow somewhat greater control over our lives. The pace of life, again not for all, has slowed and we can make decisions that are less influenced by the requirements of a fast-paced, busy life. Maybe, with some thought, patience, and commitment these changes can become our new ways of being, even after we move back to our working, hustling, bustling lives.  This won’t be easy, but is likely worth working towards.

 

Want to learn more? EarthDay.org has a list of the “13 Must Read Books on the Environment and Climate Change.”  You can also listen to this week’s New Yorker Radio Hour, which includes an interview with Bill McKibben and Elizabeth Kolbert. Interesting stuff.

 

Looking forward to hearing from you or seeing you soon.

 

Peace and health,

 

LREI@home Update #3

LREI@home Update #2

Dear LREI Community,

• Earlier this afternoon Gov. Cuomo extended NY PAUSE until April 29, this includes extending school closures until at least the 29th. Accordingly, LREI will be operating as LREI@home until at least April 29.

• A number of you have asked questions regarding security on Zoom, one of the platforms we are using for LREI@home. Zoom has made a number of recent security upgrades and we have changed some of the ways we are configuring our Zoom meetings/meeting rooms. We will share a full rundown of these security fixes tomorrow.

• I will be available for drop-in conversations with families on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings from 8:45a.m.-9:15a.m. You can find a link to my Zoom meeting room and a password at this link.  If you have concerns at other times, feel free to email or call, as always.

• I am asking LREI’s employees to take a break from email, if at all possible, after business hours, over the weekends, and on days when school is not in session. If you email your child’s teacher, a member of the business office, etc. after business hours or on a day off from school you may not hear back until the next school day. If the matter is an urgent one, please email me and I will respond to your issue or will make contact with the person who can.

• Finally, I am so grateful for the many artists who have made content available online. In trying times, literature, music, the fine and performing arts, etc. are places of both comfort and beauty, of expression and discourse. You can find a number of artistic and cultural resources (and many other opportunities) at LREI.org and clicking on LREI@home or by following this link. You might enjoy these offerings from the NY Philharmonic, this challenge from the Getty Museum, new monologues written and performed in 24 hours, or listening to one of  the many books available free from Audible and, of course, from NYC’s great public libraries (NY, Brooklyn, Queens).  Don’t forget to check out @lrei_charlton_library on Instagram for a link to a live Hamilton singalong on Friday.

• Alexis Kahan Benjoya (Middle School and High School): akahan@lrei.org
• Judy Lambek (Lower School): jlambek@lrei.org

Dear LREI Community, 

• The LREI 360 Support Fund is separate from the Fund for LREI, which supports financial aid and program.
• To contribute to the LREI 360 Support Fund, please visit LREI.org/giving.
  (Click on “Give Now,” scroll down to “Gift Details” to find “LREI 360 Support Fund.”)

• Not just when school is in session – Wash your hands, stay home when sick, check in with a healthcare provider as needed.  

• For families that have planned travel for Spring Break – We will be in touch near the end of the break with reminders of public health suggestions as to which areas, when visited, will require self-quarantine. Do not hesitate to be in touch if you have any questions. Clearly the impact of travel is a changing landscape.

• The above note on travel is important. New York City and surrounding communities have a growing number of cases. We will have to make decisions about school being open/closed based on both exposure outside of New York and the requirements of living healthfully in New York.

• Suspected exposure – If you suspect that a member of your family may have been exposed to the coronavirus, please alert one of the school nurses by calling the school’s main number, 212-477-5316 or by emailing them. For the lower school and middle school, Ava Dawson – adawson@lrei.org. For the high school, Linda Perlmutter – lperlmutter@lrie.org or Joanne MacDonald – jmacdonald@lrei.org. You can always email your child’s principal or me. I can be reached at pkassen@lrei.org or on my cell phone at 917-593-1787. 

• Tomorrow, Friday, March 13, the divisional principals will send more specific information about LREI@home. These plans will be put into practice AFTER Spring Break IF we are closed. We are sharing them this week to allow families to have some idea of our expectations for their child’s participation in our daily LREI@home program. These missives will be posted to our LREI.org/updates page.

• As part of LREI@home we are working on ways to continue to support each other as a community – parent meetings, affinity groups, access to the psychologists, etc.  We will be in touch with a plan if we close for some period of time.

• LREI@home will include Afterschool for those students who are enrolled in core Afterschool, enrichment classes, and/or instrumental lessons. The Afterschool office will be in touch with details.

• If your family will have challenges accessing LREI@home’s online program at home for technical reasons, please speak with your child’s teacher, advisor, or any trusted LREI adult.  We will work with you to find a solution.

• When we return we will be in touch about which LREI events will go on as planned and which may be postponed or changed in some way.  For now, we have decided to postpone April’s Art Auction. Details to follow.

• As I said in my Friday, March 6 message (which can be found at LREI.org/updates), while we will definitely close if the public schools close, we may decide to close if the public schools remain in session.

• It is possible that we will close, for a day or longer, with little or no notice. In addition to whatever other preparations you may be taking, it would be prudent to begin to plan for childcare, as needed.

• Wash your hands, stay home if sick, seek medical help as needed.  Can’t say it enough.

• LREI Lunch Service – in order to limit exposure during lunch service, we will be offering fewer options at the salad bar and on the hot food line. All serving will be done by adults. We will continue to have vegetarian options, etc. For the time being, lower school and middle school students will use the hot food line to get their lunches rather than eating family-style.

• For families that have planned travel for Spring Break – We will be in touch near the end of the break with reminders of public health suggestions as to which areas, when visited, will require self-quarantine. Do not hesitate to be in touch if you have any questions.

• We know that many members of our community are required to travel for their professions. Please keep the school informed if your travel has resulted in exposure to the virus or if your health care provider has additional guidance for you and your family as a result of any business travel.

• Suspected exposure – If you suspect that a member of your family may have been exposed to the coronavirus, please alert one of the school nurses by calling the school’s main number, 212-477-5316 or by emailing them.  For the lower school and middle school, Ava Dawson – adawson@lrei.org. For the high school, Linda Perlmutter – lperlmutter@lrie.org or Joanne MacDonald – jmacdonald@lrei.org.

  

• You have or will receive some general information regarding our plans for

  LREI@home. By Wednesday, we will post more specific plans for all three divisions on LREI.org/updates. These plans will be put into practice after Spring Break IF we are closed. We are posting them this week to allow families to have some idea of our expectations for their child’s participation in our daily LREI@home program.

• For older students, we are asking students to bring their school assigned devices and many of their other school materials home with them each evening and back to school each day. Thanks, families, for helping to keep students organized.

• LREI@home will include Afterschool for those students who are enrolled in core Afterschool, enrichment classes, and/or instrumental lessons. The Afterschool office will be in touch with details.

• If your family will have challenges accessing this online program at home for technical reasons, please speak with your child’s teacher, advisor, or any trusted LREI adult. We will work with you to find a solution.