Dear Washington Market School Community,

Last week I wrote that our city is at a point in handling the pandemic that has us believing that it is reasonable to allow our children to return to school. Our families need their children to be learning in their terrific early childhood environment, together with other children and with their superb teachers. This reopening must be done while keeping our entire community of children and adults as safe as possible. While other parts of the country are pulling back from physically opening schools and conflicting advice is coming from conflicted sources, NYC is an oasis of sanity and good sense.

That said, this is obviously not business as usual and we are devoting countless hours to designing the physical and supporting online programs. Our school has been working out how best to reopen since the end of March, when we all imagined a return after Spring Break, then a return mid-May, and now we are asking our staff to come to school during the last week of August so that we may train in all of the safety and health protocols that are mandated by our city and state as well as our own guidelines that go beyond these governmental requirements to reopen in September.

Things continue to change and we understand that along with all of the schools in our country, there are ways to face challenges that will be the best we can possibly do while remaining imperfect. Each of our administrative staff is engaged in creating a full description of how the physical program will work and the health procedures that we will follow, and you will receive a full depiction of our reopening guidelines next week but I want to give you some information on what we are considering at this time.

Obviously, we will follow:

· Stay home if sick
· Physical distancing
· Wearing a face covering – both adults and children
· Practice healthy hand hygiene.

In addition:

· Children will be in “pods” with their teachers and limited contact with other pods.
· Drop-off and pickup times will be staggered
· Children’s temperatures and health will be monitored
· Cleaning and disinfecting will be done several times a day with advanced equipment
· Children will be escorted into the buildings by staff.

These are just a few of the actions we will be taking. We believe that the procedures that we are implementing will create the safest model to reopen our school for our children and grown-ups.

Together while apart AND don’t forget that it’s summer!

Ronnie