Dear Families:

By now, you should have received an email from your child's teacher regarding work and activities for Monday and Tuesday. As a reminder, Monday and Tuesday will be used for virtual faculty meetings and curriculum planning for the teachers - we plan on launching remote learning fully on Wednesday morning, beginning with an 8:30am morning meeting for your child's homeroom (3/4s through grade 4) or advisory (grades 5 and 6). 

There will be several emails from me and your child's teacher over these next few days as we get this effort moving forward. As we plan, we are cognizant of email and information overload for you as parents and caregivers and it is our goal to decrease and streamline the number of communications over time. 

To prepare for Wednesday's morning meeting, know that you will receive by email a zoom web link generated by your child's teacher in advance of Wednesday. Clicking on this link will take you directly to the virtual meeting or prompt you to download the Zoom app. The process is quite easy and a series of brief and informative tutorials are located here on the Zoom Help Center. You do not need to create a Zoom account. If you are unfamiliar with Zoom and would like to participate in a brief, introductory meeting with me on Monday at 6pm, please respond to this email. (So you are aware, soon we will also be using Zoom to host some morning and evening meetings for parents - just to stay connected, hear your thoughts and feedback, and to say hello.)

The Division Heads and I will send another email on Tuesday, detailing in full the procedures and plans for remote learning. Following that email will be one from your child's teacher or advisor with additional details. 

Lastly, I remind you that we are all in this together and as challenging and unprecedented as this time is, we will get through it. It will obviously take some time, effort and sacrifice on everyone's part but eventually, it will be safe to move around and work and socialize the way we did just a few weeks ago. School will eventually resume and we will get back to our regular routines and structured lives. We have a really hard period of time to move through first, but we will move through it and while uncertainty is sometimes hard to manage and coping with change can be hard, I want you to know that we are here for both you and your children. This is the primary reason why we want to start each day with a live morning meeting or advisory time. Coming off of spring break and living with a stay-at-home order has meant some isolation for all of us, and we want to help everyone connect. Connections build community and if there ever was a time to rely on our community, it is now, even if we have to utilize an electronic medium.

Take care, be well, and we will write again early next week. As always, please be in touch with any questions or concerns. 
 
Best,
Alexis