July Update for Upper School Boarding Students & Families
By Jennifer Rundles - FF/S
Hello Boarding Students and Families,
I hope you are having an enjoyable summer and I appreciate your patience as our team continues to work hard to develop a plan for the upcoming school year. Below, you will find information about the return to school, safety measures that have been put into place for boarding students who may present COVID-19 symptoms or be exposed, hybrid learning, and Thanksgiving Break. As we continue to add details to this plan, we will communicate more specific information to you.
Return to Campus
Domestic Boarding Students: Fourteen days prior to moving to campus, students will need to self-quarantine with family in their home or private accommodations, reducing the amount of exposure outside of the home/accommodations. During quarantine, students should monitor their symptoms and take their temperature daily (if possible), avoid contact with others, avoid public transportation, use face coverings, and maintain proper physical distancing from others (six feet/two meters).
International Boarding Students: Fourteen days prior to moving to campus, all students will need to self-quarantine with family or family friends in the United States at a home or in private accommodations. During quarantine, students should monitor their symptoms and take their temperature daily (if possible), avoid contact with others, avoid public transportation, use face coverings, and maintain proper physical distancing from others (six feet/two meters).
For families that cannot arrange their own quarantine location, Darlington will support a supervised quarantine option on campus. Meals will be provided with appropriate social distancing. Testing will be utilized and will minimize isolation time, enabling students to return to a less-restrictive environment on campus. Students who need this option may begin arriving no earlier than Aug. 1 and should contact me at jrundles@darlington.org to discuss in advance.
Boarding Student Arrival on Campus
Families will be invited to book a 60-minute arrival appointment to move a student into the dorm. We ask that only the student and one other person come to campus. This will reduce the amount of exposure to the residential spaces.
When families arrive, each person will participate in a health and safety screening that includes temperature checks and physical health questions related to the coronavirus.
Please complete the Arrival Information Form to help the school plan appropriately for your student’s arrival.
Students with Symptoms
After reviewing spaces on campus, the school has made a decision to use Persons Hall (Cooper House) as a health facility for the 2020-2021 school year. It will not be used as a dormitory and will instead be used by the health center as a location to evaluate students for COVID-19 symptoms as well as to house boarding students requiring quarantine or isolation due to exposure or positive testing for COVID-19.
If a student presents with symptoms and/or has an elevated temperature during the daily temperature check, they will report to Persons Hall for further evaluation with the Health Center. Boarding students that maintain a temperature above 100.4℉ and/or have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 will remain in Persons Hall for further evaluation.
If a student or employee tests positive for COVID-19 after initial screening, the school will begin a process of identifying places and people that the person came in contact with prior to testing. Day students are to remain at home to quarantine/isolate for the duration of their isolation/quarantine time period. Boarding students needing to be quarantined/isolated will be moved to Persons Hall for the duration of their isolation/quarantine time period and/or the student can quarantine/isolate in their home or with family that are close in proximity (i.e. Atlanta metro). Students will not be allowed to fly to a quarantine/isolation space.
Class Experience: Hybrid Learning Model
While we plan to resume on-campus learning for as many students as possible this fall, our teachers are preparing for hybrid classes where one to many students may be learning from a distance. We have put into place a new set of course standards and lesson templates to help create a more consistent and productive learning environment for students, whether they are in the classroom or not. We are working on significant updates to our online Learning Management System to support this effort and teachers are also working on hybrid learning strategies.
In short, we are planning coursework from the beginning to accommodate students both on campus and from a distance. Students unable to attend classes on campus due to health or travel issues should be prepared to attend online orientation sessions and initial classes in August and to work at pace and virtually alongside their on-campus counterparts. In general, the expectation will be to attend class synchronously (live online) at the teacher's direction. When synchronous is not possible, coursework and tasks will be clear and available to work through online.
Thanksgiving and Christmas Break
Thanksgiving Break will begin Saturday, Nov. 22. Due to the current circumstances, boarding students can remain on campus during Thanksgiving break. Students traveling away from campus will not return to campus following the break but will utilize distance learning for the remainder of the semester with no penalty. Those students can return to campus in January following the December break. The campus will shut down for the December holiday and all students will be required to leave campus during that time.
International Family Forum
To assist with specific needs for our international families, we will host an international student and family forum Monday, July 13, at 8 a.m. (EST).
Please know these are all tentative plans based on current information and guidelines from CDC and the State of Georgia. Any of the current plans could change as the guidelines change.
In addition to the information above, you will receive a separate email from the Business Office about Distance Learning Tuition Credit. Please be on the lookout for that communication.
We appreciate your partnership as we prepare to have all of our students on campus living and learning together. If there is anything I can do to assist you as we get closer to the return of school, please feel free to contact me at jrundles@darlingtonschool.org or 706-236-0444.
Best,
Jennifer Rundles
Associate Director of Upper School
