Return to school plans

August 12, 2020

Dear LREI Community,

I hope that this letter finds you and your family healthy and finding summer fun even given the challenges of our complex world. I write with an update regarding our plans for the upcoming school year.

With a focus on the wellbeing of all members of the community, with hope for the most successful start to the new school year, and out of an abundance of caution, LREI will begin the 2020-2021 school year online as LREI@home, for all students in all grades. We will return to school-in-person on Tuesday, October 6th. I realize that this news may be disappointing, for some. I, too, am disappointed. For some, this news comes as a relief. I find myself in this group, as well.

There is a significant amount of information below, at our reopening website, and that will be shared during our community conversations. Dates and times for these gatherings can be found at the end of this letter. Also, please see the bullet below about an upcoming survey.

Our Plan

• We will open as LREI@home on September 9th. We have learned a great deal about the very best way to move our progressive program online. LREI@home will be as engaging and enriching as our students found it to be in the spring and will be enhanced by all that we learned last term. We will have a strong start to the year before returning in person and meeting the challenges of school in the Covid-19 era.

• We will return to school-in-person on Tuesday, October 6th. If the data that indicate the levels of infection in New York City remain below the rate that the City has set for allowing the public schools to be open in-person, and if other variables allow for a safe return to in-person operation, we will return to in-person schooling. We are hopeful that more reliable Covid-19 testing will support a safe return.

• In the coming weeks you will hear of opportunities for students to retrieve belongings and collect materials for the new school year, as well as other possible limited in-person gatherings.

• When we return to in-person schooling, lower school students will be in the buildings five days per week. Middle school and high school students will have a hybrid program (a mix of in-person and online learning).

• Before in-person classes begin we will again share the specifics of both our educational and health / hygiene plans and will make sure that we create times to answer your questions about the students’ return to campus.

• It is important to note that while we are all eager to return to in-person schooling, we will not be returning to the “old normal” of school at LREI but to some new normal. While they will successfully adapt, the children will have a very different experience than they had when they were last in school on campus.

• In the coming weeks we will examine the 2020-2021 school year calendar to see if there are adjustments that will support both in-person and online education.

• We will be sending a survey to all families that will have two questions :

  • We will ask if you plan for your child to participate remotely for the whole school year. We will need to know early next week.

  • We will also ask if you will need a supervised space for your child to participate in LREI@home during September. At this point we can’t promise that we can provide this, though are trying to make it happen. If we are, it will be made available to families where all adults in the household are working, not as a space for students to come together for social opportunities.

Our Reasoning

Beginning the school year online will allow us to have a strong, consistent, and engaging entrance while we continue to prepare for a healthy return to in-person learning. As we think about the health and safety of all members of the community, we are confident that our plan for a return to school-in-person on our campuses will accomplish this. However, doing so as the City opens up after Labor Day with increased need to use public and shared transportation and a variable response time for readily available Covid-19 tests add a significant level of complexity and challenge. We are concerned with our ability to forestall multiple exposures or infections in the community and to support excellent teaching and learning as teachers and students are required to quarantine.  During the first three weeks of the school year we will learn a great deal and will be better able to return on October 6th.

Looking Ahead

Those students whose families have indicated a preference for LREIremote, and who will remain learning online throughout the school year, will begin the year participating in LREI@home, though possibly in their LREIremote groups. Shortly, we will ask families to decide whether they will return in-person in October or if they will remain in online learning through LREIremote.

Looking Inward

We live in unprecedented times. For many of us the changes, the unknown, all that we are experiencing, represent the largest disruption in our lifetimes. We are feeling unsure and anxious. We are grieving. We are learning about the world around us in all of its newness, not knowing exactly where we’re headed. We yearn for the familiar, the benefits and challenges that come with being a community, the joy of learning together, and the exhilaration and pride we find in achievement.

LREI was founded in times of change. It is what we are built for. Progressive education was created to evolve and we are eager to meet our current challenges with you and to join together to become our next best self.

There is a huge amount of information about LREI@home, health and hygiene and our plans for when we return in person found at our reopening site.

Please see below for dates and times of upcoming community conversations. I hope that you are able to join us.