Update Letter 2: September Reopening

July 30, 2020

Dear Bridgeview Families and Community,

So here it is, late July, and as promised we have lots more news about our reopening. Please be sure to bookmark or flag this email so that you can refer to it often. Please also know that we will be elaborating on certain topics and events with additional updates in the weeks to follow.

As always, keep your questions coming; we rely on your candor, understanding, and unwavering support as we prepare for the year ahead.

Starting next Wednesday, August 5, we will again be sending out "The Latest," our weekly Constant Contact update that we implemented at the start of our school closure last March, to keep you as informed as possible as our plans evolve.

The One and Only Reopening Model (We are not offering an additional remote only or hybrid model)

We will have 5 classrooms that each will function as an autonomous group during pick-up, drop-off, outdoor time, group meetings, etc. No mixing or mingling between classrooms.

Yellow Room: Children's House classroom with 10 students and one Montessori teacher. *
Red Room: Children's House classroom with 10 students and one Montessori teacher. *
Blue Room: Children's House classroom with 10 students and one Montessori teacher. *

We are currently finalizing teacher and student placement.

Elementary I: We will utilize the Orange, Science and Purple Room space for not more than 20 Elementary I students. We are still actively enrolling that program now, and our best guess is that we will open with 16/17 students in EI. Rebecca and Oona will be the teachers along with Margaret as was our staffing last year. *
Elementary II: We will utilize the Green Room for not more than 19 students. We are still actively enrolling that program now, and our best guess is that we will open with 16/17 students in EII. Kathleen and Jolie will be the teachers as usual. *
* Each classroom will have a support teacher assigned to it. That support teacher will not "float" between classrooms, but rather provide support for the Montessori teacher in her assigned classroom. That support teacher will be in the classroom as needed. Responsibilities could include: providing teacher breaks, providing extra support for CH bathrooming, providing help in sanitizing, outdoor supervision, etc.

Before and After Care:

The deadline for requesting Before and After Care has passed. Children's House Before and After Care are full. There is limited space in Elementary After Care. Contact Rachael immediately if you need work-related regular After Care for your Elementary aged student. The extended deadline for signing up for these programs is August 4. There will be no drop-in Before and/or After Care this year.

Mask Wearing:

Teachers and administrators will always wear masks. You will receive more specific information about health and safely precautions unique to your child's autonomous classroom in the weeks to follow. Generally:

We ask that ALL children wear mask when arriving to school. We also ask that parents pack an extra mask daily.
Students in Elementary, Second Year and up, are required to wear masks. Ample indoor and outdoor mask breaks will be scheduled in both EI and EII.
Students in Children's House are not required to wear masks but will be strongly encouraged. Some work will be designated "mask work." Because we have dramatically cut down the number of students in each CH classroom, social distancing will be key and readily feasible. Some CH parents have indicated that their children are quite accustomed to wearing masks. We will do everything to support these safe habits. Certainly these students will be mask role models for others.

At NO TIME and in no program will mask wearing or discussion about mask wearing be punitive. There will be no mask shaming.

Social Distancing:

Within students' autonomous classrooms, they will each have a designated work space as well as a container for their own daily materials such as pencils, markers, colored pencils, scissors (when appropriate), etc. As advised by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, students will be set up to work 3 to 6 feet from each other.

Cleaning:

Before the start of school each faculty and staff member will have taken the Guidance for Reopening Child Care, an online course provided through Early Education and Care's Strong Start Professional Development System. This course is particularly helpful in underscoring the needed cleaning and sanitizing procedures:

Students will wash their hands throughout the day including but not limited to: upon arrival, after using the bathroom, after completing a work, after coming in from outside, after blowing noses, before and after eating snack and lunch, before dismissal.
After each student or teacher use, classroom materials and manipulatives will be placed on the cleaning table/shelf and sanitized and/or steam cleaned before that material goes back on the shelf for another student. The autonomous support teacher assigned to each autonomous classroom will help facilitate this cleaning.
Autonomous classroom teachers and support teachers will have assigned cleaning tasks scheduled throughout the day in their assigned classrooms. These include door handles, bathrooms, railings, etc.
Other areas not in an autonomous classroom space will have other faculty assigned to clean them throughout the day.

Outside Time:

We intend to schedule in such a way that all of our students spend as much outside time as possible. This will include less structured recess time as well as structured activities and outdoor classroom time. We intend to utilize our playground space, our back patio, and a newly acquired "party-type" tent that will be set up on our playground.

Our School Calendar:

Our school calendar is attached here. You all received a hard copy of this calendar in the spring as well. You can also find our calendar on our website in the calendar section. There is both a downloadable pdf and a google calendar that you can add to your own e-calendar system. Please note that certain dates, for example the November Bake Sale and Welcome Wednesday admission events, will be amended as Covid-19 protocol require.

As indicated on our calendar, our intention is to begin school on Wednesday, September 9.

Here are some additional dates and comments not included on the calendar. They will be added to the google calendar in the next week or so.

September 1, 6 pm to 7:30 pm: Elementary II Orientation: Please have 1 parent per student attend; child care will not be provided. This is a critically important meeting.
September 2, 6 pm to 7:30 pm: Elementary I Orientation: Please have 1 parent per student attend; child care will not be provided. This is a critically important meeting.
September 3, 6 pm to 8 pm: Children's House Orientation. Please have 1 parent per student attend; child care will not be provided. This is a critically important meeting.

Orientation Invitations will be sent, and RSVPs required. Knowing our numbers in attendance is critical for preparing for these events.

Classroom Familiarization Time: September 8, 3 to 4 pm (times subject to be extended to accommodate staggered visits). Classroom Familiarization time is only for students new to our school or new a classroom or program. If your child falls into one of these categories, you will receive a more detailed invitation and will be asked to RSVP.

A special calendar note: We cannot provide child care during parent/teacher conferences this year. Please plan ahead to make arrangements. As noted on the calendar, parent/teacher conferences are November 17 and 18 and March 8 and 9. There is no school for students on these days.

Tuition Policy

Bridgeview Montessori will continue to collect tuition throughout the school year. Most families pay through Smart Tuition, starting in June and ending in May. Some families arrange to pay us directly. Those arrangements are made with our business manager Pete Dahl.

If at any time in the school year, we must move to distance learning (see below), Bridgeview Montessori will continue to collect tuition across all of our programs.

Distance Learning:

Currently there are two reasons why Bridgeview Montessori School may need to shift to Distance Learning.

The Federal or State Government requires school closure.

In the case of a Government mandated school closure, we will provide remote learning for all of our students similar to how we did it in the spring of this past year; we learned so much during that time, and we plan to continue to hone our skills in this area to provide something dynamic and powerful.

If we have a confirmed case of Covid-19 in one of our 5 autonomous classrooms.

If we have a confirmed case of Covid-19 in one of our autonomous classrooms, only that classroom will quarantine at home for between 10 and 14 days depending on the current CDC guidelines at the time of classroom closure. The classroom teacher of the quarantined classroom will provide distance learning for that classroom.

If we have more than one confirmed case of Covid-19 in our school at one time, our entire school may close as advised by the Department of Public Health.

Daily Attestation Forms:

When children are dropped off at school whether to their classroom or to Before Care, a parent or guardian must sign and date a daily attestation form that we will provide at drop off. That form will ask the following:

Today, or in the past 24 hours, has your child had any of the following symptoms?

Fever (temperature of 100.4 degrees or higher), chills or shaking chills
Cough (not due to other known cause, such as chronic cough)
Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
New loss of taste or smell
Body aches
Unexplained rash
Headache when in combination with other symptoms
Nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea when in combination with other symptoms
Sore throat when in combination with other symptoms
Fatigue when in combination with other symptoms
Nasal congestion or runny nose (not due to other causes, such as allergies) when in combination with other symptoms
In the past 14 days, has your child had any close contact with a person infected with Covid-19 in the past 14 days.

If you are not able to sign, date and circle "NO" on the form, you must bring your child home.

A Symptomatic Student at Home:

Please do not bring your child to school if you can respond "YES" to any of the symptoms above. Please contact your pediatrition for guidance concerning a Covid-19 test. Also contact the school reporting absence and reason why.

A Student is Symptomatic at School:

If we have a child who develops symptoms of sickness while at school, we will follow this protocol:

We will immediately call the parent, or if needed work our way down the student's emergency card until we reach an approved adult. We will ask that the student be picked up as quickly as possible.
That student will move to our designated Covid-19 space with Sandy Nickerson, our Head of School. That space will be a sectioned off area of our Rainbow Room. Sandy will stay with that student until the parent or approved person arrives for pick-up. Pick-up will be at the Rainbow Room door down the outdoor stairs off the playground.
We ask that the parent or guardian check in with the student's pediatrician and follow all indicated protocol.
We ask that the parent inform us to the pediatrician's orders.
If a Covid-19 test is warranted, we ask that the parent or guardian contact the school letting us know that 1) the student will be receiving a test 2)the expected result date.
If there is a positive Covid-19 test result, please follow pediatrian's orders and contact us ASAP. We have strict reporting guidelines that we must follow to keep our small community and the community at large protected.
A positive Covid-19 test will be reported to the autonomous classroom that the student was learning within. That classroom will quarantine as noted above. The school community will be notified as well. No name will be provided, and we ask for your discretion.
If the student is sick with a common illness and the pediatrician does not indicate Covid-19 testing or the child has a negative Covid-19 test, we ask that you follow pediatrician's orders and send the student back to school only when deemed well and approved by your pediatrician.

Drop-Off

All parents/caregivers, teachers, and students MUST wear masks at drop-off time. Because each drop-off adult will be asked to walk the child to his or her drop-off door and sign the daily attestation form, we must change our drop-off procedures.

Before Care Drop-Off will be between 7:15 am and 8:35 am at the Red Room Door on the Playground. Please prepare to utilize line-up markers to socially distance while waiting for your turn.
Elementary II Drop-Off will be under the tent on the playground between 8:15 am and 8:30 am daily. Please prepare to utilize line-up markers to socially distance while waiting for your turn.
Elementary I Drop-Off will be at both the Orange and Purple Room doors between 8:30 am and 8:45 am. Please prepare to utilize line-up markers to socially distance while waiting for your turn. You will be notified by your teachers as to which classroom door you will be assigned.
Children's House Red Room Drop-Off will be at the Red Room playground door. Please prepare to utilize line-up markers to socially distance while waiting for your turn.
Children's House Yellow Room Drop-Off will be at the playground side door under the awning. Please prepare to utilize line-up markers to socially distance while waiting for your turn.
Children's House Blue Room Drop-Off will be at the Blue Room door. Please prepare to utilize line-up markers to socially distance while waiting for your turn.

Enrichments

As you know, Bridgeview Montessori's enrichment activities (Art Studio, Music, Fitness, etc) are a fundamental part of learning. We are not sure yet how they will fit into our classrooms as we consider current safety guidelines. We will update you as things become more clear.

Visitors and Volunteers:

As of this time, we cannot welcome visitors or volunteers into our school while students are here. Alas. This is one of the hardest things as you all are so wonderful.

Please note that the Department of Education and Care, our Children's House licensing body has already approved our reopening plan. According to our licensor, the structure of a Montessori classroom already lends itself to the new guidelines. Maria Montessori was a wise woman!

Bridgeview Montessori School is asking you to entrust us with your children's care, and we wholeheartedly understand the gravity of that request. Please know that we are working tirelessly to plan for a successful school year and carefully prioritizing how we disseminate information along the way.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. The success of our opening safely will depend on our whole community's ability to be honest, careful and brave. If we all follow the guidelines, we will be able to enjoy the full richness of our community of learners. I ask that you share with me your concerns, questions and requests for more information.

Sincerely,

Sandra Nickerson, Head of School