Transition Plans for Second Quarter

Dear TGS Families:

Thank you to those of you who participated in this week’s Family Association meeting!  We appreciate your engagement and the questions you posed during our Zoom gathering. In fact, those questions have helped to inform this week’s message.

As we shared Wednesday evening, we are continuing to finalize plans for our second quarter and the gradual transition to in-person learning on campus. We are intentionally bringing subsets of students to campus beginning the week of October 19 with the goal of having everyone who chooses to be in-person on campus by the week of November 2. As we transition to in-person, it is important to note that the plan will be for in-person learning to happen only four days of the week; Wednesdays will be designated for remote learning for everyone with the exception of the small cohort of students who have been on campus since school began on August 24th. Why? So that we can deep-clean the campus, especially those high-touch areas (restrooms, library, dining hall, etc.), while providing a day of separation that aligns with cohort guidelines.  

Transition Schedule:

Week of October 19th:  5th grade returns to campus with our existing on campus cohort, so we can work with our youngest learners on the new safety protocols. Everyone but the original on-campus cohort will work remotely on Wednesday of that week.

Week of October 26th: 5th, 8th, and 12th grades return to campus with our existing on-campus cohort, so we can work with our school leaders on following and then modeling the appropriate safety protocols. Everyone but the original on-campus cohort will work remotely on Wednesday of that week.

Week of November 2nd: All grade levels return to campus. Everyone but the original on-campus cohort will work remotely on Wednesday of that week. 

In order to plan appropriately for this transition, including how big a learning space we need for each class during the day, we need to know exactly which students/families will choose in-person learning and which prefer remote instruction for the remainder of the semester. Therefore, a very brief survey that simply asks you to identify the student name, grade level, and learning option (in-person or remote) concludes this message. We ask that you make this decision for the remainder of the semester, due to the logistics required to ensure everyone’s safety relative to in-person learning. We appreciate receiving your decision by Tuesday, October 6th.

To help you make that decision, we know you need to know more information about the instructional delivery that will be provided with the two  options. We are planning to continue to rely on the Zoom platform, while supplementing Zoom with webcams (so that remote students feel more fully connected to classroom instruction) and other pedagogical strategies, as such strategies are available and helpful.

Our goal is to ensure that students will have as similar a learning experience as possible whether in-person or remote. A “one size fits all” approach will not work in this instance, however. Teachers will continue to utilize the strategies that work best for their student cohorts, their content, their learning environment (indoors/outdoors) and their pedagogical experience. As such, your child’s experience in one class may be different from another—but all of the students in each class, remotely or in person, will have a similar experience. If families choose the remote option, we ask that you continue with that choice for the remainder of the semester. We will much more easily be able to accommodate a change from in-person to remote learning after experiencing what the in-person realities are with masks and social distancing.

The success of this plan will require all of us thinking of the safety of others within our TGS community. To the extent you intend for your student(s) to attend in person, please know that the protocols of mask wearing and maintaining social distance will be enforced on campus. Also, we will be providing recommendations, received from medical professionals, about keeping students home for a period of time if they have been traveling, especially by air, if they may have been exposed to someone who is sick, and, of course, if they are experiencing any symptoms related to COVID-19. Choosing in-person learning means that parents and guardians agree to support all such policies and procedures, and recognize that failure to comply with the TGS policies and procedures could result in withdrawal from TGS and/or not being allowed to participate in future school activities.

Thank you for completing this survey.  Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you’d like to ask additional questions that may help you with your decision.

With appreciation,

Julie A. Sherrill, Ph.D.
Head of School