January 11, 2021
Dear LREI Community,
Greetings and I hope all is well in your household.
As you have read in a number of email messages, this evening, Monday, January 11, 2021, I will host a community gathering at 7:00p.m. You can find a Zoom link through LREI Connect on the Community Events Calendar. Please use the link on the Community Events Calendar, not a link to my Zoom room as some of you may have been directed.
So as not to create undue expectations, there is no major announcement coming this evening. I hope you choose to join this important conversation nonetheless. As we stated in the fall and then again last week, we are planning on returning to in-person/hybrid schooling on January 19th. In this note and, and this evening, I want to share some reminders and requests.
This evening I will speak a bit about how we are making decisions regarding the school year. At the end of this email you will find reminders regarding testing and travel. Most important for this note and for our conversation this evening are thoughts about what we can each do to support in-person schooling for all of us.
A few facts:
- Our in-school positivity rate is low, similar to other schools, public and private.
- We have yet to trace any incidents of in-school infection.
- We continue to examine our policies and procedures, seeking to balance the needs of our health and safety protocols and our academic program.
- We are facing challenging times ahead, even as we move closer to more widespread vaccination
More challenging than the daily and specific protocols and procedures of our Covid-19 schoolhouse (outlined below) is the consideration that we all must bring to decisions about our time outside of the school day. We know that many are quite focused on this question and are being extremely careful, making choices and changes in order to keep their families healthy. This, in turn, keeps us all healthier. Deciding how we will spend time outside of school, with whom we will gather, and the activities in which we will participate are all challenging decisions. They are made all the more so by the fact that we are making them not only for ourselves but also for many, many others.
The majority of students who came to school when potentially contagious were exposed during outside activities, practices, or gatherings. Or, they were exposed by an adult family member. If we are committed to prioritizing in-person school, then we will have to make difficult decisions about how our children and our families spend their time outside of school. Small gatherings are a danger – with friends, with family, and with teammates. We are asking you to limit your family members’ exposure to others in order to limit the exposure of the community, by, for example, limiting playdates, visits with cousins, coffee or dinner dates with adult friends, etc. The fewer the better, none is best. For our older students….Parties? No. Not now. Hopefully by summer. 🤞
Some communities are asking their members to sign a pledge. My feeling is that these sorts of tools are redundant as signatures or no signatures, our “pledge” is implicit in our return to school in-person and our daily participation as members of the community.
Hard times ahead. Please prioritize your family’s health and well being and that of other LREI families and community members. In this way, we will have the most successful months ahead – as few community members being exposed to a positive case of Covid-19 and as much time in school in person as possible. Please join together as a community. It is in our children’s best interest. It is the staff’s best interest. It is in our families best interests. Honor our individual and communal responsibilities.
Thank you.
Specific community responsibilities:
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- Please complete the Magnus wellness questionnaire every day. This is required for those who are participating in school in-person, participating via LREIremote and for all during LREI@home.
- Alert the school immediately if anyone in your household has been exposed or tests positive for Covid-19.
- E-mail nurses@lrei.org immediately, even if symptoms develop or tests return after school or over a weekend.
- Keep your children home if they have any symptoms of Covid-19. Have them tested immediately.
- Sending a symptomatic child to school puts in-person schooling at risk for everyone.
- Symptoms that require keeping your child home and testing are: fever (100℉ or higher), cough, runny nose, nasal congestion, sore throat, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache that does not resolve with rest, fatigue that does not resolve with rest, loss of taste or smell.
- Pick your child up from school within an hour if you are called by the school’s nurses.
- Participate in our Random Sampling Testing program.
- We will continue to test 20% of students each week.
- We will alert you one week ahead of time if your child is chosen.
- Schedule a telemedicine visit and a testing time for your child.
- You can have your child tested outside of school when chosen if you prefer as long as you are able to submit a test result within three days of the random testing date.
- Students who are exposed will have to quarantine for 14 days, following the CDC’s ongoing recommendations. (We feel that this is safer for the community than following the slightly relaxed NY State requirement of a 10-day quarantine.)
Return to School Reminders:
- All students must have a negative lab-confirmed COVID PCR test in order to return to in-person schooling during the week of 1/19/21.
- If your child has been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past 90 days, they should not be retested. One of the school nurses will contact you directly to inform you if your child is exempt from this requirement.
- Please be aware about prolonged testing times and plan ahead. For testing resources and accepted tests, see this website.
- Note: We will not accept negative Rapid PCR tests from the Rapid Test Center, rapid molecular, or rapid antigen tests to return to school (these are not laboratory confirmed tests.)
If you traveled over the break, please read the protocol below. This protocol has changed slightly for international travel.
- Please email nurses@lrei.org with your travel dates. If this protocol is not followed, you will be required to quarantine for 14 days (by the state of NY).
- The NYS Travel Advisory applies to anyone who traveled outside of NY or the contiguous states (NJ, PA, CT, MA, VT) or to a CDC Level 2, 3 or 4 Country for 24 hours or more.
- Test while traveling, no earlier than 3 days before your return to NYS (may be rapid, saliva or PCR testing).
- Arrive back in NY and quarantine for 3 full days (your travel day does not count as a quarantine day.)
- On your 4th day back in NY, test again (MUST be a saliva test or PCR).
- If traveling internationally, you must quarantine for at least a full 7 days prior to returning to campus AND have a negative test on or after day 4 of quarantine (CDC).
- Send both results in the same email, with your travel location and dates to nurses@lrei.org and wait for clearance to return to school.
- Refer attendance questions to your division’s principal.
- NOTE: All household travelers must follow this protocol. If an adult travels without all household members, the adult must quarantine fully away from the rest of the family until their NY test is resulted as negative.
- If you do not test prior to arrival in NYS, you must complete a full quarantine. LREI will be continuing with 14 day quarantines, as recommended by the CDC.
Other:
Sign up for lunch. It is important that we all sign up for lunch by Wednesday for the week ahead. You can sign up now for all lunches through February.