Interesting observation, @CateCAParent . I am guessing that the differences have less to do with the personality of the schools and more to do with their physical layout, their student bodies, who their lawyers, consultants, and planners are, what school and local health facilities are, kind of parent interactions they had over the spring, etc.
While I don’t like block scheduling (our LPS had it, and it was a major factor in choosing private school), DA has a particularly elegant way to create “,pods” of people which is a recommendation for schools. The CA schools have many more options in terms of outdoor space.
I am guessing that some parts of these plans will continue to evolve, which makes sense. Everyone is taking on more risk and nobody quite knows exactly how much and how the plans will minimize it.
I tend to agree with @FinnMom - it’s not Ebola! But with that said, I also have 2 friends who ended up on ventilators (my age) so realize that some people, particularly staff and faculty, are going to be more vulnerable community members. The schools have a lot to juggle.
I think the 2 week quarantine on international arrivals is a government rule right now for arrivals to the US (for those allowed to come to begin with) and same applies going the other way. It could be removed should things improve significantly but there is no guarantee of that.
I think it might be state by state - only getting that bc of how Cate’s announcement was phrased:
“Students who travel to Cate to begin the school year will not be subject to quarantine expectations prior to arrival on our campus.
Boarding students will be tested on their move-in day, and they will be subject to some constraints on their movements around campus pending the results of the test. Day students will also undergo testing protocols during orientation, and all students, faculty, and staff will be subject to further testing at intervals thereafter.
Our focus with respect to populating the campus is on testing protocols that can provide us the surety that we need that each student is at no risk personally and poses no risk to the community. This expectation holds for students coming to Cate from locations inside the country and from abroad.
At present, this posture is wholly consistent with the policies in the State of California, which requires no quarantine period for out of state visitors or visitors from overseas.”
I can see quarantining being top of the list of controversial topics and one of the policies most likely to change (in either direction, strict v loose).
@gardenstategal, it is Choate’s laundry policy (sorry @Golfgr8 ) that got me thinking. I am imagining the planning meeting in which that idea took hold. Somebody came up with it, and enough people decided that the safety boost was worth the cost and logistics hassle. They must have more robust laundering facilities and distribution structure than others to make that work.
Isn’t the travel ban still in place for many countries? I know my friend from Canada said they are not allowed in at all yet (not US citizen).
As for most controversial topic, I would say it would be the need for parent or designated emergency contact to to pick up student who either tests positive or close to someone who has tested positive and keep them isolated/quarantined for 2 weeks. I would have expected schools to be able to deal with it on campus. If you don’t live within reasonable driving distance this is a big ask.
Other people know way more than I do on international travel bans. I really don’t know how visas work at all. I did poke around a week ago and found the actual language on the US ban, and it has a LOT of carve outs. It wasn’t clear to me how it would apply to students. It sounded possible.
No matter what, it is going to be a nightmare maneuvering through the red tape. I wouldn’t fault an international parent for not wanting to send their kid thousands of miles away right now.
Yeah, @417WHB requiring families to have their own local quarantine plan seems unrealistically hard. There has to be a better way. That would be another decision I would want to know how it came about. These schools are all so helpful to the distant parents especially. It strike me as out of character. The schools must feel like it is truly beyond their means, which it might be if there is a big outbreak and the school has to shut down entirely and flying home is out of the question.
This was a surprising request to me as well. As a family that will have to fly to school, we would be completely out of luck had our daughter gone to one of several other schools. We are fortunate to have family within an hour of her school (and it sounds like her school will be providing quarantine locations on sight), but for our nephew who is at a Connecticut BS, our (extended) family has no option should he need to list a quarantine address.
Yes @CateCAParent . Someone either decided it was worth it or that something about the way the laundry is currently set up creates a real liability. But I can imagine the conversation… Laundry!!
For international students, parents might want to fly in, if their child gets Covid but will likely be unable to, if there is another spike and travel closes.
I think the idea of having someone take care of your sick child locally is tough at best, unless you have family/friends nearby.
Has anyone heard of the daily situation with testing? It’s also likely IMHO that there will not be enough tests if there’s another blip. Companies are not going to make tests unless they know they’ll be used and if cases increase, it will be like everything else. Supply chains will have a tough time keeping up.
Also, the idea of keeping kids segregated based on dorms/other seems like it’s going to be tough. Depends on the size of the campus but it’s going to be tough on the faculty.
What arrangements have different schools announced for day students in the fall? As a former day student (will be boarding as of whenever we come back to campus . . . school hasn’t announced yet), I hope that schools can find a way to keep everyone safe without doing too much that would exclude day students from aspects of campus life accessible to boarders . . . When I was a day student (at a school that’s roughly 80% boarding) I found that day students were sometimes treated as a secondary group or less a part of the school, which is an attitude that I’ve heard day students at other primarily boarding schools run into as well. I hope that schools are able to avoid “other-ing” day students in their plans for reopening – what have your families’ schools arranged (if you know yet)? How do you think it does on the front of including day students in the community?
I am sitting on tuition waiting for the announcement. Harvard being closed for the fall concerns me as this spring as soon as Harvard jumped (even though it is a college) most NE boarding schools followed quickly. There is no way my DS can sit in his bedroom on a computer for the year. Ultimately it is up to him but IF it is a remote fall I hope there is an option to simply sit out the year and return fall 2021. I’d rather he attends his local HS and be with other kids his age and repeat a prep school year.
So far some have said welcome back, but quite a few schools are silent.
What I don’t understand about testing when the kids arrive is, if someone actually has COVID how can they expect to contain it ( since they won’t know who it is for 3-4 days?) Our school said they are letting students test and bring results within 3 days but if they fly they have to test on-site again. They seem to be bringing kids back in waves. Each dorm will be considered a family unit.
I don’t imagine any international student will be there for the Fall after hearing all of the details. US policy is still quarantining on arrival to the US for two weeks ( I think) and other nations make returning citizens quarantine on the other side. That’s assuming they can even get a student visa. Some of these kids have already quarantine this Spring so they could get home. I think Juniors and Seniors will ride it out and Fresh/Soph might opt out of BS altogether. There are many international kids who stayed in the US with friends or family because they thought something like this might happen.
@PrepDad2018 Do you think your local public school is going to be in person? In MA, where the numbers are currently very low but had been really high, there’s few if any schools that have decided to have the kids return. Some with small numbers of students are coming up with hybrid models. Others are breaking kids into groups.
We are in the “waiting room” going the other direction - overseas- for one family member this September. The EU is supposed to issue guidelines on July 1st. Has anyone received information about EU universities or schools?
@Happytimes2001 our local school district announced they are coming back with an option for parents to keep their children home for DL if they wish. Mass also announced physical returns this week with limits on numbers.
@PrepDad2018 Sorry I misread your earlier post. I was thinking you were trying to avoid DL at all costs. But I think you are saying why pay for DL at BS if you can get it via the public school. Our local public offered very few classes and little instruction this past Spring, especially in lower grades. They sent the high school kids to Khan for instruction. So I was glad the kids were in private. But I can also see how many parents don’t want to pay if school is going to be primarily DL.
Yes, MA just came out with new distancing guidelines. Less than 6 feet ( I think it’s oddly 1 meter). That allows more kids per class. Effectively, I think that means our BS could accommodate all students esp. if some don’t return or are doing DL.
@doschicos Thanks for posting the NMH plan. Interesting, it is the first one I have seen that leaves the possibility to stay on campus past Thanksgiving. Probably don’t want to lose their star basketball team? Of course with the latest news I am starting to think these plans are not worth much since the way things have been going lately we seem to be headed for online fall. Which is what most of the boarding school faculty are pushing for based on what I hear from BS teacher friend, much like with non-boarding schools as well as colleges. The more I read our school’s plan the more issues I see there, and there are still a ton of unanswered basic questions about what boarding student life on campus would actually look like this fall. I totally understand everything is a moving target with many unanswered questions but it is quite unsettling to have to make a decision with very little information.