June 19, 2020
Dear St. Perpetua Families,
I hope you have enjoyed your first 2 weeks of summer vacation! We continue to be very busy here at school. We are excited to welcome many new students and families to our school community, as those in Lamorinda and the surrounding area have heard how successfully our entire school community worked together during the unexpected Shelter in Place this spring. Several classes are now full with waitlists and other classes are nearing capacity.
Many of our current and prospective parents are inquiring about what the new school year might look like. I continue to meet weekly with our Superintendent and principals in the diocese and I attend all meetings from Contra Costa County Office of Education and Contra Costa County Public Health Services. I have created a task force to assist me with gathering and interpreting the information from the State and County to ensure we can have our students on campus to the fullest extent possible in a safe and healthy way. This task force is comprised of Fr. John, myself, Holly O’Brien (Vice Principal and Kindergarten teacher), Chad Zullinger Technology Coordinator), Suzanne Kozel ( Office Manager), Molly Maduck (parent) and Lucy Mason ( parent). We met this morning and we will continue to meet at least weekly throughout the summer to ensure our facility and staff is ready to welcome students on August 17!
This task force is reviewing “Stronger Together” a guidebook for the safe reopening of schools in California which was published earlier this month and “Roadmap to Reopening Schools” published by the Contra Costa County Office of Education last week. During the meeting yesterday with the CCC Public Health Department, I learned the County will be publishing a handbook for schools as well. From all these documents and any others that follow, the committee will help to create new policies and procedures to ensure the health and safety of all our community members.
As this task force finalizes components of our plan, I will share information with all of you. Please know we are highly committed and motivated to have students on campus as much as possible. However, we all need to realized that classrooms and the school day will look very different than in a pre-Covid-19 world. Key phrases from the “Stronger Together” 55 page document that are critical for the task force to consider include:
*”Plan to limit the number of people in all campus spaces to the number that can be reasonably accommodated while maintaining a minimum of 6 feet of distance between individuals”
* “To the extent possible, and as recommended by the CDC, attempt to create smaller student/educator cohorts to minimize the mixing of student groups throughout the day. Minimize movement of students, educators, and staff as much as possible.”
*”In accordance with CDC guidance, avoid sharing of electronic devices, toys, books and other games or learning aids.”
It is very likely that we will need to create cohorts of students. The number in a cohort will be based on the physical distancing requirements (which is currently 6 feet between students). We are currently evaluating how to best utilized classroom spaces and other rooms throughout our facility to ensure the necessary physical distancing requirements for students and staff.
In conclusion, although you are no longer receiving daily emails from me, we all continue to work and plan for successful reopening of our school building in August. We will all need to be flexible and creative as we figure out what the new normal will be. We are committed to returning to our campus and providing a faith-based, rigorous academic program while maintaining safe and healthy practices for all members of our community!
With much gratitude for all your prayers and support,
Karen Goodshaw,
Principal