In the spirit of this letter, we are planning ahead now for the upcoming Winter Break and the other long breaks for the remainder of the year. Our experience with the recent October break has been reviewed and we expect to roll out our planning next week for your consideration. It is important to note that we are not planning any change to our calendar or days between now and our last day before the holiday on December 18. All of our planning is focusing on the period of time following the holidays and mitigation for safety. You have time to offer input on that decision-making this week. Just add a note in the rolling survey after our Town Hall meeting to share your thoughts on what you think we should do following the holiday. The rolling feedback survey is here:
We are always reviewing your comments in the survey along with your feedback on confidence in our decisions and our approach. The most recent charting of that is here with 96 responses during the last two weeks (1 is low, 10 is high):
I want to thank you for your positive feedback and hopeful we can continue to receive your support and guidance.
Finally, I want to thank our PTO and the many country representatives for their work in getting ready for our postponed United Nations Day next week. We have a live stream opening next week and we have opened the door to national dress costumes on the day which we encourage at all levels.
Our theme: Unity and Peace through Compassion Kindness, and Hope
An important theme for the current state of the world. I’ll send a reminder early next week with details on the Livestream presentation. I know we can’t gather like usual this year, but I expect that we can do many wonderful things here at school to embrace our diversity. Thank you to all who are helping to make this as special as possible.
Our thanks to PTO and all the creative minds of the community as you take on the challenge of our UN Day format. It’s important to continue to value and share our diversity this year under extraordinary challenges. But, we know the parent community is up to this and look forward to your contributions. Thank you in advance for your participation.
We have some drama productions that will still try to get on stage despite our inability to provide the robust audiences we would normally invite. We are following some strict protocols to still give our thespians a platform for developing their skills for the future. It may be different, but they are rising to the challenge. Look for virtual links of these important ac
Finally, I would ask you to please head to the rolling parent survey that I have in each Daily Update. I need a more robust data set this time to give me a picture of how parents are feeling in the moment and in advance of the board meeting on Monday. Please take the time to fill out this survey – it’s only three questions and you are already familiar with it: https://forms.gle/gfzyE3BAonpvHuam8
Finally, we have a board meeting on Monday, November 16, and information on the board packet and details on virtually attending will come out on Friday, as usual.
I hope all had a nice break that has refreshed you for the weeks ahead. We are looking forward to the period between now and the holidays, always with some of our most significant work of the year.
I hope you all had powerful parent conferences. I heard many great things about our virtual structure and how it was an important time with teachers talking about your student. Remember that teachers are available to you at other times in addition to conferences. If you have concerns, please reach out for additional time to talk and know that we try to make ourselves available to address any issue with expediency. As I’ve said at many new parent orientation meetings: Don’t wait! We want to make sure our partnership serves the needs of your children throughout the year.
Big thank you to PTO for their work in being creative once again with our Halloween celebration. Decorations at our entrances really captured the spirit of the season! And the contest on FlipGrid was amazing! We have some great pumpkin artists out there.
We had some wonderful dialog the other day about silver linings and looking for the many things we have learned and better understood through adversity. I came upon a Marilyn Monroe quote that seemed to fit the moment: “Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together.” In the coming weeks, we may have to face some things falling apart in order to find the path to greater cohesion and capability. In that journey, we are all together and enriched by our daily accomplishments. Wishing you all the best and welcome back!
One of our core values that sits at the center of our aspirations is our understanding of resilience. We know it through the words of Bounce Back, but it has been the cornerstone of all of our work in recent months as we face the challenge of fear and crisis. There are many aspects to resilience, but often the most important is how we reach out to each other in important and special ways when things seem the darkest and most dismal. Even with six decades under my belt, I still don’t fully understand the equation that inspires us to climb from the depths and find new meaning and direction out of the ashes of disaster.
Some of you know that our new band teacher, Emily Cleghorn, suffered one of the most significant of losses on October 3. She was notified on October 4th that her younger brother Samuel had been killed in a fatal motor vehicle accident. She boarded an airplane hours later to rush home. His obituary is here:
A newly commissioned ensign in the U.S. Navy, it was clear that Samuel was about to launch into an inspirational career. Emily was devastated. But, in the true spirit of resilience, she took charge of all the arrangements for her young brother, working through all the details that saw Samuel returned home to Palm City, Florida with military honors.
But, the sad turn in this tale is that the challenges of this have resulted in Emily deciding that it would be best for her and the family she must now care for to resign her position at ASW. Emily described it as one of the most difficult decisions of her life and she is heartbroken that she will not be returning to the classroom where she was just beginning to develop the bond we all hold dear as a new Warrior. There is much more to this story of loss that is private to the family, but after a long conversation with Emily, it was clear that her resilience in this instance requires that she follows a different path and I have accepted her resignation.
Bounce back does not always take the shape we expect. Sometimes resilience means we must follow a different path. I know that I’ll retain memories of Ms. Cleghorn’s energy and enthusiasm and, even though it was a short sojourn, we will still count her as a Warrior, now and always. Search for her replacement is underway and members of band will get additional information shortly.
A Special Treat
Twizzlers – Yum!
Speaking of things that help us through the most challenging of times, I received a special treat from the Haim Family today in the afternoon and I’m in Heaven! One of my favorites from my youth, Twizzlers, arrived for me just when I needed them most. I’m pictured here remembering my long lost love of that fruity flavor, rainbow style! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! It was a welcome repast!
Aspiring Board Member Training
I’m about to send my message to those who signed up for our session tomorrow but wanted to give one last opportunity for others to still join us. Before 8:00a tomorrow, please.
If you would like to participate, you can sign up by clicking here:
Each year, I offer training sessions for aspiring board members. This can include our Board of Trustees, who are always recruiting new members, as well as service on other non-profit boards for charitable organizations. There is general information about serving on the board and specific information about how ASW governance works.
If you would like to participate, you can sign up by clicking here:
The BoT is always seeking candidates as new Trustees (U.S. citizens and Non-U.S. citizens) who could serve to fill open positions mid-year or run for elections in the spring. This process, overseen by the Board of Trustees Governance Committee is ongoing throughout the year. The link to that form is here:
We are ready to deploy testing for parents onsite starting on Monday. Parents can be tested at school for the following costs:
Individual antigen test – 179 PLN (valid for 7 days in OK4School) Individual PCR tests – 399 PLN Individual Antibody tests – 85 PLN
The results will be reported through the app and payment can be done at the time of testing at the main entrance. We expect the deployment of pre-ordering via the website sometime shortly after the break. Parent testing would provide for access to cohorts if parents are also compliant with daily attestation through “OK4School”.
Once the website is ready, parents will be able to subscribe to weekly testing for a further discounted price. If we have sufficient parents that choose to participate, we can move parents to pooled testing and lower the price even further for the subscription. More information from Epixpert coming soon.
Events
I want to thank PTO again for helping to manage as we change some of our plans for the time between now and the October Break. As the notes below will share, we’ll need to forgo traditional activities, but still find some joy in the holiday. I trust PTO and parents to find some creative options that are safe and viable under the circumstances.
Final Words
I need you all to be thinking about safety out there. We are getting close to our break and case numbers continue to rise along with the reported numbers today in excess of 6000. Warsaw is on the verge of being declared a red zone. We have our own illnesses that we are tracking, although isolated and contained. For the most part, all of you are doing a great job of reporting on the app and keeping kids home when they are ill.
Please take my words as literally as possible: now is the time to STAY HOME (yes, I used capitals again). We are OK at school and I know you are doing everything you can at home to protect the community. The cases are being largely caught at the door or early enough to prevent spread. Stay safe and stay cautious. We can get through this together.
A big thank you to PTO for their amazing efforts in keeping a tradition alive and well with a wonderful weekend Raffle. I hope our live event on Sunday wasn’t too jagged for you and that we got enough announced to make it a fun and engaging afternoon. Thank you to all of the bidders and for the final tally: US$6265!!
PTO is planning away for upcoming events and I value their energy and enthusiasm. They are working hard to preserve our traditions in new ways, consistent with the challenge of a pandemic — no easy task! But, we certainly have the right people to take this on. You only need to look at the banner on their new “chalet” to understand how we turn lemons into lemonade. Please join me in thanking them for their efforts. Best way to thank them? – Volunteer!!
Students, similarly, are trying to find the silver lining of our restrictions and plan new ideas and involvement. At MS Student Council, one of the big questions was how can we do charity work and continue to serve others. We might not be able to organize a dance right now, but we are still concerned about how we can give back. Many are seeking agency under a new set of limitations — let’s not call them regulations — and the ideas are flowing.
As a school, we welcome collaboration and resilience. We love life and learning at ASW, always looking for ways to bring meaning and coherence to what we do!
I know you are probably sick of me writing it, but the reality is clear that we are not normal yet and it is likely that we will have to adopt a new normal for the long term. With another case identified today, we are reminded that the prevalent nature of potential infection is always with us. There were major milestones that hit around the world in recent days and yet many questions remain unanswered. We are trying to understand something that may not be understandable. We are struggling to do our best and harness the odds.
I fear we will now find ourselves in a constant cycle of identifying new cases and doing our best to minimize exposure to the rest of our community. There is no one solution that is possible, but it is clear that the path of infection is impossible to predict. Thus far, we have stopped further spread in its tracks and our protocols on that front are working. But, the odds that we would see nine infections by this point in the year were low. This means that community spread is higher than what is reported and there is risk that exists around us. Our learning from recent cases is not crystal clear.
Some were certainly travel related, either by a relative or a family member. Travel increases risk, that much is clear. With some planning trips even this coming weekend, I can only offer a word of caution and note again the stipulations of our rules adjudicated through our survey. October Break brings another layer of challenge to this and we are hopeful of your attention to these parameters.
Some of our infections were simply community exposure. As we move about, we need to be thoughtful about risk in the general public and avoid outside activities that bring potential harm to the community. We can never be sure about where this might emerge. The government announced changes to address this by lowering the number allowed in public gatherings from 150 to 100 – an attempt to limit these vectors of potential exposure. Our OK4School app is about informing and educating you on these potential lines of concern so that you can protect yourself.
At school we can’t avoid risk entirely. We stated that at the outset and students are here in these hallways through informed consent, with parents understanding the risk.
On the long weekend, we will be making updates to the OK4School application and will communicate these tomorrow after final checking. It will tighten some areas and make some parts easier for you to address. We are growing as a community in our response and our thoughtfulness. Step back to assess as numbers climb and understand the difficult task we face of unifying around a new normal of consistent practice and holding our families and our community close and protected.
Recent Evening Events All Successful!
Want to thank everyone for their participation in key orientation events provided by both the Upper School and Elementary, the traditional Back-to-School. Many thanks to the teachers for their creativity and energy in delivering this content in a new format and to the administrators, coordinators, and counselors who all had a hand in making it memorable and relevant. As always for virtual events of this nature, many thanks to the IT folks in the background working hard to make all of this function effectively! And, thanks to parents for your interest and your partnership again renewed.
Remember that the side benefit of doing these virtually includes being able to watch this content over and over again in the video archives. Please ask if you don’t know where to find it or check eNotes in the relevant sections below for guidance.
First, we have been working over the last couple of days with our planning relative to the upcoming long weekend, the October break, and our original plan for conferences for both Elementary and Upper School. I’m going to try, in the next few paragraphs, to capture the details of our planning that finally came together this morning with collaboration and final decision this afternoon.
We have three issues that we are trying to address:
Generally, maintain our COVID testing schedule to minimize expirations and keep re-testing within a grace period of no more than 3 days after the expiration date.
Minimize time out of school and coordinate days for families.
Provide for transition back to school after a longer vacation.
So, our most immediate concern is the upcoming 4-day weekend that includes a professional day for staff on Thursday and a three-day weekend for all of us to take a well-deserved break. For this and future 4-day weekends (or, with slight differences, 3-day weekends), we will do the following relative to COVID testing:
Students normally scheduled on Thursday will be tested the day before on Wednesday.
Students normally scheduled on Friday, will be tested on Monday.
This means that the Thursday students will expire one day before their regular day the following week. Friday students will be expired for two days before their Monday testing. We can’t adjust the app for the expirations, so we will inform you of this consequence and you can send your child to school even though the app might show that you are not OK4School due to an expired test. This will be the same plan for the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend in November and our general strategy for three-day weekends when they occur.
For conferences, we want to combine tackling this along with our plan for returning to school after the October break. With this message, we are changing both our ES and US parent conferences to the same dates right after the October Break:
CONFERENCES for ALL GRADES are now November 2 & 3!
These are the two days right after the October Break. This is different from prior communication from both principals and they are correcting their messaging now to communicate this change to all families and staff.
We had long considered that we would need to have re-entry testing for students after long breaks and many parent comments in our surveys pointed this out. It took us a bit to put all the pieces together and this is our plan.
First, all conferences are virtual and had already scheduled for students to stay home while teachers connect with parents via virtual connection appointments, similar to our Spring meetings with parents. Second, while we have typically scheduled upper school and elementary conferences at different times, there is nothing that precludes us from doing them together and we believe this is better for families with students in multiple divisions.
Next, during November 2 & 3, we will arrange for the transition back to school by setting up for drive-through testing for all students, family-style during these two days. With extra support, additional stations, and extended times, we think we can accomplish the large task of testing the whole school during this time period. So, for two days, each family will plan to do the following:
schedule and participate in online conferences for all Upper School children in the family
schedule and participate in online conferences for all Elementary School children in the family
schedule one family appointment for drive-through testing at school
To be clear, our advice for October Break is that we do not believe travel is warranted at this time. But, if you or a family member travels during the October break, you must be aware of the following:
If you travel, you must return 72 hours prior to your family appointment for drive-through testing. If you are scheduled to test on Monday, you must return by Thursday.
If you travel and you visit high-risk countries, you must wait 7 days before testing and return to school
I know that some will bristle at the suggestion, but there is still no clear evidence that travel is safe at this time. Numbers are still climbing and most areas are seeing significant increases in the number of cases. I’m hopeful that most of our families will remain in or near Warsaw for the upcoming vacation, as I have suggested previously. To that end, if you do not travel during the break, we will have additional drive-through testing appointments scheduled for Friday, October 30, during the break to relieve some of the stress the following week. We will have all the times and details out shortly along with directions on scheduling both testing and conferences.
Fire Drill
We will have our first official fire drill on Friday this week at 10:30a. This is our only announced fire drill of the year. Last week’s bad sensor didn’t count and not everyone was here, so this is the annual test of our procedures. Students at various levels have already been practicing, so we feel we are ready for this. If you are in the parking lot on campus or attempting to enter, please be prepared to wait until the drill is complete before you will be allowed to move. We will also send a test message from our Emergency SMS system on the day.
U. S. Election (for U.S. Citizens only)
If you are a US citizen and still have not sent your absentee ballot, we are pleased to inform you that, like four years ago, ASW, in consultation with the Consular Section of the US Embassy, is offering an opportunity for US-citizen members of our community to turn in their absentee ballots at ASW. Given the unusual circumstances, this year the Consular staff will not be able to assist you in person with registration or casting a ballot. Therefore, to assist you in voting, ASW will put out a ballot box at the main entrance area where you can drop off your ballot during school working hours (8:00 a.m. through 4:30 p.m.). Outside of school hours, you may still hand your envelopes to the security guards at either gate who will then bring them to the school and add them to the ballot box. Please make sure that you have properly sealed your ballots and placed them in a correctly addressed envelope with proper postage attached. You can print a postage-paid label HERE!
The deadline for turning in your ballots at ASW is September 30th, 4:30 p.m. The ballots will then be collected by the Consular staff and dispatched via diplomatic pouch.
Please find here the Embassy’s most recent message addressed to U.S. citizens about voting and their website at https://www.fvap.gov/. Should anyone still have questions, you are welcome to e-mail the Consular Section of the US Embassy at ACSWarsaw@state.gov or call +48 22 504 2784.
Let’s take a break from our COVID conversations and enjoy our stability for the moment. Testing is stable, response to infections has worked, wristbands largely adopted, surveys going well. So, let’s talk learning!
This week and next, you’ll have virtual opportunities to learn from teachers about our program this year. Similar to my message about getting into our stride, we are ready to help you understand our programs in more depth so that you can interact with students at home. Open houses will necessarily take on a virtual format this year, but that means you’ll have content you can also watch that is recorded and you can go back and review. Each division has its own program and structure, so watch for messages to explain and eNotes from principals below should help you navigate.
Knowing more about the learning your child is attempting should lead to conversations at home that gives you greater understanding of accomplishment. Find ways at home to have these conversations and use listening starters like “I heard you say…” or “Can you tell me more about…” and let your child expand their reflections. Use SeeSaw at Elementary and Google Classrooms Guardian Summaries in the Upper School to chart the learning path in more depth or help you with questions you can ask. Watch or participate in the Open House or Back to School together as a family and think about how you will create a habit for reflecting on school each week – where does it fit and how best to make sure you take the time for it. Research has shown that reflecting on learning is critically important for kids to see value in their efforts and connect parents to the partnership. We value all of you in this process of building meaning together!
One key measure from the annual Parent Survey just before July that continues to be a strong measure for us is this statement: My child is engaged and interested in learning at school. 97% of the ASW community either agrees or strongly agrees that this is the case. And, for this statement “The ASW curriculum provides my student with the knowledge, skills, and understanding for the next stage of education.” we have 92% either agree or strongly agree. Both of these are strong indicators of engagement and the framework for accomplishment to thrive. Thank you for your feedback as we work to continuously improve in all areas!
One additional note: We had an impromptu fire drill today just about dismissal time. Most elementary students were already gone, but most of Upper School was just about to be released when it went off. Our scheduled drill is next week, so this was a bit unexpected even though elementary just got done practicing yesterday. The alarm was caused by a faulty sensor in a middle school classroom, so there was no concern and we evacuated both the building and the buses to our safe areas while the usual checks were performed. My thanks to the parents who waited patiently in the parking lot while we completed our protocol.
It is usually about this time that we celebrate finding our stride for the year as we complete the “getting to know you” phase of our annual journey. No more poignant than this is the assessments we do to determine readiness for the tasks ahead of us.
One of our usual tools for this is what we refer to as the MAP test. This is the short name for the Measures of Academic Progress that has helped assess and understand the dynamics of the academic growth of students over many years in our school along with other students and schools around the world. We use this tool in conjunction with other measures of student progress to plan and tune our program each year to meet the specific and special needs of students. This year, in particular, it is an important benchmark for how kids are doing despite the circumstances of our challenges.
There are many instruments of this nature that we refer to as achievement tests. An achievement test is most easily understood as a comparison between your child’s level of performance and the average range of thousands of other kids of similar age and accomplishment who have taken the same measurement. It’s a statistically measured test that uses mathematical formulas to estimate current placement and growth over time. We never use the MAP test by itself in measuring academic growth, but look for MAP to help inform us along with other classroom measures and teacher observations of student performance. But, MAP can help us look both at individuals for greater understanding and at groups of students to determine how we might focus our attention for support, professional training, and resources.
Remember that we are also equally focused on social-emotional growth, so measurements of this kind should inform our teaching and learning, but should never be used in isolation as a grade or judgment. In order for instruments of this nature to be accurate, we must remove all stress associated with the activity and allow students to demonstrate the best of their true abilities. The best decision coming from this, or any other assessment, is to plan more effectively for the next best learning activities.
Middle School is partway through this process and High School and Elementary will follow shortly. We look forward to sharing our insights from these tools as part of our ongoing collaboration with you through meetings and conferences in the near future.
Cafeteria is Serving Up a Great Lunch!!
I just want to offer a shout out to our cafeteria, Solivoda, for the wonderful job they are doing under difficult circumstances. For elementary, they are serving individually packaged lunches with extra care for our youngest learners. For Upper School, kids have a selection of lunch choices served in special containers consistent with our hygiene protocol. I can’t applaud them enough for their efforts in bringing a healthy competent lunch to us and following all of our guidance for packaging and safety, including the compliance of all their staff for testing and daily survey. Please consider reviewing the menu and joining the program online at https://asw.solivoda.com/
Last week shook us a bit and, although not unexpected, we all felt like it was a bit early. But, like I wrote last week, we learned much from it and, despite our general success, we can now move to improving our response and solidifying our practices. Middle School returned yesterday and settled back into class without losing a beat. Everything is, thus, generally on track.
Please help us on morning surveys. This is our main issue right now with entry and a critical component of our STOP plan. Daily morning completion of the survey is required and we would like to get our numbers down much lower in order to manage our systems in this regard. This is the reason for the 7:30 a.m. deadline each morning (except Wednesday and weekends). We need the time to check on any issues and we must have this in order to avoid checking children with you based on our lists. There are very few remaining application related issues. The vast majority of our challenge is the 100 -150 entries to the survey that come closer to 7:45 or 8:00. That overwhelms us and is critical to being prepared in the morning and being able to direct our time elsewhere.
To help with this, we are making some changes this coming weekend that we believe will help streamline your survey completion and minimize absences. Mainly, we will be moving to a four symptom focus:
non-productive dry cough
serious unusual tiredness
loss of taste or smell
serious muscle aches and chills
Please read the attached letter for details on the change and how this will help us focus on the most concerning symptoms and separate them from allergies and common cold symptoms. The link to the document below:
We will also be changing the time period AFTER symptoms and reducing the exclusion to 24 hours, with a requirement for re-test to re-enter. This will minimize absences without adding any risk to our identification as the letter explains.
Attached below is an addendum to our Data Processing declaration that you confirmed in PowerSchool at the beginning of the year. It clarifies the data exchange with EpiXpert and notifies you of the foundation for that exchange. We’ll also post this in PowerSchool and on our FAQ page for reference.
Thanks to those who have sent many messages of thanks and encouragement for our handling of last week’s exposure. You have all been wonderful partners in helping us to achieve our goal of responding to threats and minimizing the time out of school whenever a case emerges. You have all been wonderful.
And, finally, I’m going to change the schedule on Town Halls starting next week. I think we can relax a bit to every other week going forward in hopes of slowing down the communication incrementally. I’ll keep the morning Daily Updates for a bit longer. If we can get a few weeks under our belts without a new case, we’ll look to relax a bit further as we inch our way to the next crisis level. Looking forward to achieving that goal in short order.
Our community was challenged this week with our first COVID-19 infections and we moved right away to put our plans into action in the face of new challenges. As we move through our first day of “no further cases,” it is too early to reflect comprehensively, but the early insights are beginning to crystalize.
Learning #1 – We did well at school. The methods we used at school, both for protection through masks, distance, and hygiene, are limiting the spread of this virus when it intrudes. If that were not the case, we would have seen more cases yesterday. While we hope for no infection, we are also aware that infection will still emerge. Identifying it quickly is the core of our REACT strategy. What we do here limits the impact. It’s too soon to say for sure, but we seem to be on the right track.
Learning #2 – We need to finish fixing our systems to support this. Our app will get increased focus in the coming days and starting on Monday, we will all default to what the app tells us no matter what. Nothing with the app caused the problems, but it confused some of us and we have to regain your trust in it as a key tool. We’ll have to work hard to get there to earn your faith.
It should be noted that the App has been adjusted for exclusion for symptoms and will now flag a student as NOT OK4School if symptoms are reported and, further, will also flag family members for the same. As announced this morning and yesterday, going forward students who experience any of the following symptoms will remain home for 72 hours AFTER symptoms are gone (without medication).
Temperature greater than 37.8C
New or worsening cough
Shortness of breath
Significant reduction in sense of taste or smell
sore throat and/or muscle aches
fever or chills
diarrhea or vomiting
tiredness or weakness
difficulty swallowing, extreme thirst, or loss of appetite
Learning #3 – We have to let this be our wakeup call about what we are doing outside of school. Many of the cases revolved around parties and gatherings during the weekend – birthday and otherwise. We have other students who are self-isolating because they came in contact with our subject or others not at ASW who were positive carriers. I’ve received many reports of this both directly and indirectly.
Let me put it simply: We just CAN’T do this! If we want a safe community and if we want to avoid future closures, we must avoid the things that you all know well. Let me try to list them:
Do not attend any gatherings with mixed populations
Do not let your kids play with others outside of the school community
Do not join large groups in enclosed settings (concert, etc)
Do not travel (I know – but that’s the way it is – it’s just not safe)
Do not frequent restaurants and bars (confirmed by multiple studies as high risk)
Do not have close contact with High-Risk individuals (close contact = no mask, within 1.5 meters for more than 15 minutes)
Report ALL symptoms (see above) to school when known
NEW: if one child is sick with the above symptoms, all children in the family stay home. Contact the school for guidance.
Learning #4 – It is good to be back at school. Despite this challenge, good things were already starting to happen. Kids were getting used to masks. They were washing their hands. They were learning and getting back into the swing of school.
So, I’m still convinced we are doing the right thing in the most prudent way possible. We were challenged by this sequence of events, but in the process, we tested and improved systems, confirmed that our tests work (all have been externally validated), and added to our resilience in times of adversity. Continuing our partnership, now and always!
Despite the difficult circumstances, we have begun our extraordinary year with only some general glitches to be resolved. All around the building, I’m hearing the joy in the voices and hearts of children as they reconnect with their friends, their teachers, their learning. As I said to all the Upper School assemblies, I missed you all terribly and it’s so good to have you “home.”
We are doing everything we can to work out the remaining glitches in various systems, but the core is working well and most are finding success with the various controls. From remembering that all temperatures should be in Celsius to the daily routines, I can sense that we are settling into some degree of stride, absorbing new practices as we go. Students are already starting to think creatively about how we can all contribute further to the PROTECT portion of our model and I’ve seen good attention to hand washing and appropriate practices throughout the building. There is a powerful understanding of our limits and the value of taking care of each other.
My thanks to all parents for your patience and I hope that our process has been helpful while making sure it’s not too daunting. It is change after all and change is always hard.
In terms of keeping you further informed, the following is a weekly feature from EpiXpert that will come occasionally and as needed to give you more information on their process.
Testing protocol
We have gone through the first round of testing during which we are using anterior nare swabs and antigen tests. Antigen tests detect the viral protein on the surface of the virus (vs PCR which detects the inside of the virus – its genetic material). As mentioned before, our tests have demonstrated 96+% sensitivity and 99+% specificity, with very narrow 95% confidence intervals (this is the range in which 95% of results fall into, the narrower, the more consistent the performance). These results are on par with PCR tests. The biggest advantage is speed and simplicity. They are also well suited for pooling because their sensitivity and specificity are not affected by pooling (samples are direct swabs so undiluted by transport medium). Antigen tests are being touted as the future of population-based screening – dependent on their availability.
Independently, we are working on validating RT-LAMP tests for use with saliva. RT-LAMP tests are a modern and simpler version of the “dinosaur” PCR method (PCR has been a novelty since the 1980s). We will provide an update on this within the next 2-3 months as this would further simplify the sample collection.
To ensure completeness of the process, if a pool comes out positive, we will isolate and retest each individual in the pool — and whoever tests as positive will be isolated and quarantined.
Swabbing technique
There are now four places accepted as equal for sample collection – nasopharynx, oropharynx, mid-turbinate, and anterior nares. We chose the anterior nares because it is less invasive for children and for more efficient for sample collection in populations. There are studies that actually demonstrated higher sensitivity of anterior nare samples as compared to the nasopharynx. Additionally, children have been shown to have 1000 times higher viral loads as compared to adults when shedding. We have also validated our tests on anterior nare samples. Hence, until we have validation of the RT-LAMP tests on pooled saliva samples, we will continue the current approach.
Even with the anterior nare swabs, there is an odd chance of discomfort or even minor irritation of the nasal mucosa. However, this is the only risk of the testing and is rather transient.
Hopefully, you will be able to join us tonight for our weekly Town Hall. We’ll have more time for your questions tonight with only brief introductory comments on status. As of this writing, only 6% of our school population is choosing a Hybrid opening with more than 85% of our community confirming their consent and readiness to begin. We expect that the remaining parents who have not yet completed their consent forms will do so along similar lines before we open on Tuesday. Please remember that your child cannot start school next week unless the consent form is completed. I send a special message to the remaining parents as a reminder today and we will make phone calls later in the week.
Teachers started work yesterday on their planning toward our opening, as is the normal practice at this time of year. But, their special charge was to consider how to address the needs of our students in hybrid mode at the start of the school year. You will be receiving messages, age and grade dependent, on how we are starting. I saw some of those messages starting to come out to you today.
As we start to create a community of trust associated with behaviors suggested by science to protect us, I’m asking your cooperation in the coming days to return to a more closed status and avoid any of the areas of risk that you well remember from spring. Keep your children close to you and stay away from crowds where social distancing is not being practiced. The community standard we all set is about protecting the health and well-being of each other – a theme associated with our core values that will be oft repeated in our goal to educate and persuade in the short and long term.
Students who have come to be tested this week have generally had a good experience, giggling with the tickle and understanding the loving approach to checking on our health. For those who had a few tears, we are hopeful of more practice and dialog at home as we build a habit around healthy attitudes toward this extreme situation.
Note that the country list has been updated on our FAQ page and will now be aligned with government publication of travel restrictions, which is likely a more accurate representation of current risk. I have appreciated the stories from parents about how they have protected their families during the summer period. The result is that we have not had a positive case yet amongst our students or staff. With almost a third of our population tested, this is good news and supports our decision to go ahead with opening.
We will have a partial opening for our new families on Monday, where we will provide limited access for small groups to the administrative core. They will not be allowed into the cohort areas this year as we will be in preparation for opening. This will give us one opportunity to share with them the story of the school and connect them with mentors that will guide them through their arrival and acclimation. I look forward to greeting you on Monday at your designated time.
Enjoy your final weekend before school begins. Our school is almost ready with only final touches before us. Thank you for all your continued partnership and involvement throughout the summer as our plans have formed and crystalized. Our collaboration continues in the days and weeks ahead.
