Dear Parents and Guardians,
Thank you for your insights and feedback both on our recent survey and during the virtual meetings we have held over the past two weeks. In addition to your feedback, I have been in frequent communication with our faculty, staff, and administrators. A common thread of anxiety moved through each of those conversations. Many of you have expressed uncertainty about your own decision as well as your care and concern for our employees.
From the beginning of the summer, WT has been committed to a return to campus for our students as long as it was safe to do so. While conditions around us are improving, there are still risks to our employees, some of whom will not be able to be on campus and need to teach remotely while students are on campus, fundamentally changing the student-teacher interactions and requiring a need for additional staff.
We know that we must continue to be nimble and flexible in our return to school planning. More than just a pillar of our strategic design, "Support Employees" is a deeply personal guiding point in all of my decisions. It is apparent that we must shift the way we will begin school.
With all of this input, I have determined that:
- We will delay the opening of the 2020-2021 school year by one week, opening on Thursday, September 3 to allow for our employees to receive additional training with COVID-19-related procedures and to prepare for an eventual shift to our divisional models.
- We will remain fully virtual in all divisions for the first three weeks of school (through Friday, September 25) and begin transitioning students back to campus beginning Tuesday, September 29. Details will be shared in the coming weeks. (Per the School Days calendar, available in the Resources section of MyWT, there is no school on Monday, September 28.)
- We will make up the missed first week of school by eliminating the first week of Spring Break, March 22–26.
We will continue to monitor COVID-19 trends, and will provide frequent updates about our intentions for the remainder of the fall.
Additionally, there has been a great deal of uncertainty about whether or not interscholastic athletics should continue due to the unknown coronavirus-related risks as have already been demonstrated. I have further decided that there will be no interscholastic athletics competition for the fall season. We will provide opportunities for students to engage in team skills development and intramural activities.
Our new Director of Athletics, Cedric Brown, will host a virtual parent meeting regarding Middle School and Upper School Athletics on Wednesday, August 19 at 4:00 p.m. More details and the link to the Zoom event are available by logging in to MyWT and going to the online calendar.
While this is not where I had hoped we would arrive, I am confident that it is the best decision for our community as a whole. We have learned a great deal from our experience last spring and have been working to develop an even stronger remote learning program. We also will create opportunities for students to socialize together in smaller groups to address the isolation they experienced last spring. Further, this decision allows us to carefully track how the influx of students at neighboring universities impacts the spread of coronavirus in our community.
The fully on-campus experience remains our goal for all of our students. Knowing that any time spent in remote learning will not match that completely, we are modeling various tuition discounts and/or future credits in recognition of that change. As details develop, we will share those with you.
Our Division Directors will provide additional details about our opening weeks in the coming days. I am deeply grateful to each of you for the commitment you have made to WT. I have received valuable, actionable input and appreciate the deep level of engagement that you have with our community.
Be well,
Scott