COVID-19 News and Updates

Risk Level 1 (Low Risk)

• No Kirby community cases of COVID-19

• Limited reported cases of ​COVID-19​ in Bay Area

• Average student attendance remains high 90-100%
• No advisories against non-essential travel to CA and San Francisco Bay Area
• Some countries declare public health emergency (not the US)
• Airports implement informal screening mechanisms; travel advisories recommended by WHO

Kirby School Response

• Maintain classes as normal with extended lunch period to allow for thorough hand washing
• Encourage frequent hand washing, remind community to cover coughs and sneezes
• Avoid field trips to places with known cases of community acquired COVID-19
• Continue school community gatherings 
• Follow our fever protocol from the Family Handbook

Risk Level 2 (Medium Risk)

• No Kirby community cases of COVID-19
• Bay Area cases increasing steadily including cases of community spread
• Increased student absenteeism 
• Increasing evidence of potential restrictions on airline travel / other forms of international public transportation
• COVID-19 disease behavior or contagiousness changes to higher risk level

Kirby Response

• Maintain classes as normal with extended lunch period to allow for thorough hand washing
• School day schedule may be modified to create time to plan for distance learning
• Cancel destination specific travel, events and field trips to places with known cases of community acquired COVID-19
• Increased school cleaning and disinfecting of shared surfaces
• Cancel gatherings with people from known communities with cases of community acquired cases of COVID-19
• Follow advice from state or local governmental health agencies
• Teachers may initiate a class check of temperature if a student(s) are suspected of illness
• Students will be sent home if they have a fever

Risk Level 3 (High Risk)--> Current Level

• Identified cases in the household (household staff or family) of a member of the Kirby community (includes staff, students, and contractors who work inside building)

• COVID-19 cases rapidly increasing in the Bay Area
• County/State/Federal Government directs that schools be closed
• Evidence of restricted airline travel or major travel restrictions

Kirby Response

• Follow guidance from governmental health authority on school campus dismissal and or closure 
• Cancel all co-curricular programs (clubs, athletics, public performances)
• Cancel all field trips
• Cancel all special events and community gatherings
• Suspend classes for one day to allow for staff to transition to distance learning
• Maintain a skeletal staff at school unless campus is closed with curfew enacted by governmental authority
• Implement distance learning model

Risk Level 4 (Maximum Risk)

• 30% of our community is absent and unable to participate in distance instruction

Kirby Response

• Suspend all instruction until absentee rate falls below 30% for a sustained period of time

Academics in Fall
It is our plan to eliminate, if possible, the factors that led us to offer only P/NP/Inc grades this semester:

• Our grading categories will be balanced to better reflect the types of assessments that we have moved to in the online environment

• We will have intermittent on-campus contact that will allow us to access and check on the well-being of our students

• The addition of advisory groups will allow us to offer organizational and social support

• Our Learning Management tools will be improved and reliable so students aren’t penalized by software/website failures

• We are working to support all families with the necessary tools for online participation in a more comprehensive way

As the County ramps up their approved childcare offerings, we will be able to provide more consistent, synchronous classroom experiences.  This will allow for increased differentiation for both students who need more challenge and students who need more assistance. 

With the luxury of preparation time, our course design can go back from the reactive state-of-emergency to the responsive, forward-thinking state of planning.  It was much harder to pivot from the educational arc of in-person instruction to online, however planning with this flexibility in mind opens up many more possibilities. 

Performing Arts:  We will not give up on these!  If we are in a state of high restriction, we may need to use technology to prepare for and execute our productions.  Our staff have proven time and time again that they are capable of learning and deploying cutting edge tools and I expect no less of them next year.

What we hope to achieve with our new Learning Management System
Many of the challenges that students and families faced this semester stemmed from the fact that there was very little consistency among classes in P-Learning and students had to gain sometimes impossible quantities of organizational skills to even attempt the curricular content of their classes. On top of this, P-Learning crashed so often in the first weeks of distance learning that many faculty developed alternate class pages or started communicating two or three different ways to ensure that students had the information they needed. This led to overwhelming amounts of communication coming at our students. We are shopping for a Learning Management System that will ease the burden on students and parents by creating a simplified learning space in which students have consistent ways to access the tools for their classes. This will require the faculty to re-design their course pages from the bottom up, which will be a big task, but they are ready and eager to do what is necessary to alleviate stress on our students. One particular feature that we are shopping for is a page for students to see a list of assignments that are due in a single, printable window that will allow them to work offline more often.

Summer Preview
Classes that are being planned: Arts, Creative Writing, extension of the MS Music Course, Outdoor Science and Photography

Clubs that are being planned: Crafts, Baking, D&D, MTG, Book, Photo/Art, and in-person Athletics!

Many people requested math for a summer offering, but I’m unsure if this is a request for math games, math competitions, math classes, or math remediation.  Please email me with details about what you would like to see in a math offering.

Warmly,
Christy

Congratulations--we are halfway through the 100 Days of May!

HVAC insights

We have worked with our contractors to improve filtration on our air handlers.  Our air circulation was always designed with wellness in mind so classroom air is completely renewed on a regular basis with intakes/vents in every space at Kirby.

Fall Education Experience

It appears likely that we will be asked to reduce our population by half each day.  We believe there is good sense to this requirement, as it will make it possible to conduct transitions with full hand-washing protocols in a timely way.  Our current thinking is to divide the school up by grade level so students will have opportunities to see and meet everyone in their grade.  This would likely mean that we will have 6th-9th grades on for two days and 10-12th grades on for two days per week.  The 5th day of the week is still being designed, but it looks like this will be virtual so we can have school-wide and class-wide gatherings as we usually do in a safe way.

With masks on full time, it may be true that some classes make more sense online.  We will not be permitted to set up classrooms so students face one another or work in small groups, so classes that are structured to make use of those paradigms may prefer the virtual environment where breakout groups will be safe.  One example I mentioned in the video is American Sign Language--since facial expressions are an important part of ASL, it may make more sense to keep that class online than try to execute it in-person with masks on.  

We haven’t had an opportunity to work with faculty since the guidance has become more clear, so we can’t yet offer any commitments about which classes will meet in-person and which will stay online.

We will make efforts to support contact tracing by creating stable cohorts as much as possible for in-person classes.  Students will be mixed with other members of their grade in the virtual environment, but contact with a wide variety of students will be minimized at school.  We hope that this will allow us to keep school open for as many students as possible if there is a report of exposure in our community. 

For most mixed grade-level classes (such as math, Spanish, Latin, etc.), we will be able to separate grade levels by section.  For single-section mixed classes such as Dance, Choir, and Drama, we currently believe we can come up with accommodations to allow students to participate as they have in the past.

Our classrooms can accommodate up to 12 students in nearly all of our spaces with 6 foot distancing between students.  The smaller classrooms will either be put to different uses or taken out of circulation until it is deemed safe to use them again.

Warmly,
Christy

Dear Kirby families and friends,

I got a couple of emails today that said they didn't get reminders of today's call.  When I checked my bulk mail add-on (Yet Another Mail Merge), it looks like the task stopped about a third of the way through the list.  I am so sorry about that.  Next time I will go back and make sure the bulk mail task is completed.

For those of you who are interested in hearing the conversation from today, here is the [link redacted: please send us an email if you need it forwarded to you] to the Zoom recording.

For those of you who prefer the summary, here is what we discussed:

The transition back from Spring Break has been bumpy.  Without the external context change of walking, bicycling, or driving to school, it seems like many students are struggling to restore structure to their lives.  Some adults, too.  I sent a YouTube video to students with some advice about screen time and bedtime earlier this week.  Faith Reid also sent a lot of helpful tips in her email earlier today.  Morning showers, exercise, and exposure to natural light during the day should go a long way toward getting us all back on track.

A question was asked about the new grading policy this week.  A grade converts to "No Pass" when it falls below 70%.  If this decline was caused by illness or an excused absence, you don't need to worry.  Students will be given ample time to get caught up on their work.  Students below passing at the end of the semester who are struggling to catch up may also be given an "Incomplete" grade, which would allow for an extension of deadlines past the end of the year.  "Incomplete" grades are a common tool we use at Kirby to support students who get ill or experience a hardship at the end of the semester.  

P-Learning has been better this week, but it's still having reliability problems.  Sometimes teachers are unable to populate P-Learning because it won't allow them to make changes when it's down.  When that occurs, the faculty have been sending resources to students through email.  If your student can't find what they are looking for on the P-Learning page, please encourage them to check their email.  All links, videos, and lesson instructions should be accessible via P-Learning.  If this isn't the case for your student, please have them send an email to the teacher and/or academicoffice@kirby.org for assistance.

Thank you to the students who gave up many hours over Spring Break to assist with the Music Director hire.  Our top candidate accepted our offer and he specifically named the quality of our students as one of the main reasons for his decision.  Our students should feel great about that!

8th grade step-up/High School graduation plans are going to go ahead on the original dates on the school calendar.  We are going to prepare for fully virtual ceremonies and be ready to make use of any alleviation of the Shelter In Place ordinance to gather our students in whatever way may be allowed.  This may mean that our students are gathered and the ceremony is broadcast to parents or it may mean that we are broadcasting from small groups that go through smaller ceremonies in person.  If we are unable to gather in-person, we will put together a recorded/live experience that we can enjoy together with a Netflix-style watch party.  Again, we think it's best to be prepared and flexible for whatever may be possible.

We talked a little bit about the return to school in the Fall.  Right now it appears that state and county authorities agree that we should get back to school as soon as possible, so I do believe that we will be returning on time (1st day of school August 17th) in the Fall.  The county has also shared that we should prepare for social distancing protocols in schools, although they haven't yet said what those will look like.  The preliminary announcements suggest that when school is permitted to resume, we will be allowed to gather as many as 50 people at a time at once.  This might mean staggered school start times or reconfiguring classes, but I want to assure families that we are prepared to be as creative as necessary to maximize the time spent in school rather than engaged in distance learning.  I'll certainly share more details as they become available.

Here's hoping that you are all off your computers and reading this Saturday morning.  :)

Warm regards,
Christy

Dear Kirby families and friends,

As promised, I am writing to you today with an update about our plans for the rest of the semester. 

One of the most unsettling features of this period of time is the magnitude of the uncertainty that we find ourselves in. We are given bursts of data that bring hope or frustration in between long periods of anticipation. There is one comfort that can be had in such a time, and that is a well-articulated plan. This is what I’m striving for today, so I hope you’ll bear with me through the details.

First, I think it’s important to acknowledge that we will not be able to come back together physically as a community to finish the Spring semester and will conduct the remaining weeks in the Distance Learning mode. The latest CDC reports suggest that we will see the highest rates of illness in May. While this will change how we approach our end-of-year acknowledgments, I want to assure you that the Kirby spirit of innovation and creativity will be applied to the task of re-invention of these ceremonies. We will ensure that the accomplishments of our students are recognized and celebrated. Our current plan is to go ahead with 8th grade step up via Zoom and reschedule the high school graduation for August 1st. If you are a senior family and have a conflict with that date, please let me know as soon as possible. We are also still discussing alternatives for the Athletics Banquet.

Next, I want to shift to the state of our Distance Learning program and what you can expect in the weeks after Spring Break. While the overall Distance Learning experience has been positive, it has become clear to us that not all students are able to equally access this mode of education, for various reasons. While we have thus far been able to address student needs as they arise, we recognize that as COVID-19 grows in impact on our immediate community, this will become increasingly difficult. While we do not anticipate that students will become severely ill, it’s highly likely that a significant portion of our staff and parent community will need support. 

Enough articles have been published by people who have experienced this virus that we have a fairly clear picture of what we may soon be facing. Even in households with mild cases of illness, extensive protocols to separate healthy high-risk individuals from those who are sick may be required, which can be complex and labor-intensive. In cases of more extreme illness, which is more likely to impact the parent population than our students, household chores such as taking care of younger siblings or meal preparation may fall on the older children. Some families may be disrupted by the need to care for extended family in other households or extended hospitalizations of household members. These various circumstances should take priority over the educational experience of our students.

Distance Learning is imperfect, but it is a powerful antidote to the painful isolation that we face as a population. We understand that the role of Kirby School, at this moment in time, is primarily pastoral and secondarily educational. We would not be living our mission and values if we were to tell students that their primary focus in the midst of a global pandemic should be academic. Rather, we want the academic component of their lives to feed their sense of connection and security. Now is the time that our students should be forging strong connections with their family and friends so that they may be resilient and compassionate in the face of the coming triumphs and tragedies of the next few months.

After consulting with dozens of colleges and facilitating hours of discussion among the faculty, we have come to the conclusion that all students will be given marks of Pass or No Pass for their classes at the end of the semester as currently practiced in our 6th grade. Work collected prior to March 16th will still be graded according to the original policies and stored in the gradebook. Work after that date will be reviewed and given credit according to effort. Students will be given ample opportunity to respond to feedback for full credit. Work that is missed for reasons related to the pandemic will be excused without penalty as much as possible, rather than piling up. Students will be permitted to engage at their optimal level, regardless of whether they are just logging in to see familiar faces while sitting in a hospital waiting room, or at home fully focused in their quiet work space. Students will still get feedback in the form of checklists and narrative comments at the end of the term.

Kirby welcomes students from other schools at every grade level every year. This often means that students are coming into the school year with highly varied background skill levels. Students who experience major disruptions in the coming months will be supported next fall in the same ways that we support new transfers--with individualized attention and care. This is the great advantage of the Kirby approach--small classes and strong relationships have proven to be a successful formula to address the challenges presented by gaps in learning.

Kirby’s highly trained faculty will continue to offer intellectual inspiration and stimulation to your child or children. We have great faith that Kirby students will continue to engage and offer their best thinking when they are able. We also believe that those who are not struggling with illness will take comfort in knowing that their less fortunate classmates will not be penalized for their circumstances. Our students are wonderfully attentive to justice and equity and we believe that this policy is respectful of their values.

The vast majority of colleges have recently been encouraging high schools to adopt Pass/No Pass grades, and we think it’s best for the health of our student population to put this policy in place immediately. The only universities currently with unclear expectations are those in the statewide UC and CSU system. We anticipate that they will announce acceptance of P/NP in the next few weeks, but if they offer different guidelines we will take the necessary steps to ensure that our student transcripts are competitive for these programs. 

On a more positive note, we are all looking forward to the restorative opportunity of the upcoming break. Faculty will work together tomorrow to collaborate and further develop our Distance Learning approach. Ms. Olsen has collected a list of Boredom Busters on this document if you are looking for ideas to fill your time. The students worked very hard in these past three transitional weeks and we encourage them to disengage from screens and get outside while the weather is nice. It’s also a great time for everyone to catch up on your fiction reading (email me if you want fantasy recommendations--Sanderson’s Stormlight Book 4, Rhythm of War, is just 8 months out!). 

There is one additional task that could be fun to tackle during Spring Break for our performers or digital media producers. If your student is feeling inspired to share their talent at the last-day-of-school Kirby Talent Show, please encourage them to submit this form to work with our staff to prepare a video for our Talent Showcase. We are excited to maintain this particularly enjoyable Kirby tradition.

Wishing you a healthy, restful, socially distant Spring Break.

With gratitude,

Christy

It was lovely to see your faces again today!  Here is a link to today's Zoom meeting recording (link redacted for privacy).

I've attached the outline of agenda items I covered in case you don't have time to listen to the whole thing.  The discussion from the "chat" window is also attached.

I want to add one note I neglected to include when I was questioned about homework during Spring Break--while we don't assign homework in general, there are some types of work that can be expected:

• Extra Credit/ Enrichment opportunities
• Reading novels or chapters of novels
• Make-up work 

It's hard to believe we are already two weeks into this--and it also feels like school has been closed forever.  I will have a couple more surveys coming out next week to gather feedback about what we could do to support students and families during and after Spring Break.  These surveys have been very helpful thus far.

Wishing you all a lovely and healthy weekend!

Warm regards,
Christy

Dear Kirby families,

As you recall from my communications last week, our first campus closure on March 10th and 11th was the result of an employee's housemate being exposed to COVID-19.  We then closed for a campus deep clean and that employee has remained off campus since that time.  We learned this week that the housemate has subsequently tested positive for COVID-19.  The staff member does not have any symptoms of illness, but I wanted to share this update with you as you make decisions around the likelihood of exposure in your household.  If the staff member does develop symptoms, I will update you again.

The families of students who had contact with this staff member have already been contacted, so if you haven't heard from me, then I am reasonably certain that your child did not have direct contact.  We are very aware of the employee's movements on the day in question (March 9th), and we don't believe there is increased risk to students who haven't been contacted directly by me.

Your trust is important to me, and I want you to have as much information as possible even when I believe risk is low.  If you've been following the County of Santa Cruz announcements, it is still believed that there are far more cases in our county than have been documented, which is why they moved on the "shelter in place" order rather than waiting until our county's documented number of cases rose.

I've heard from a number of families that there are still play dates happening in our community.  While I am hopeful that this is old news, I want to appeal once again that we do everything in our power to avoid this.  It is documented that children and adults can be asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19.  In the absence of testing, there is no way for you to be certain that you aren't spreading the virus by arranging playdates.  

As a school, we are working actively on mechanisms to facilitate social connection without physical presence.  Please let us know if you need help connecting your child to other students.  We share your goal of ensuring that your child is feeling connected with their peers.

In this together,
Christy

Dear Kirby families,

There are two important topics I’d like to cover today: one is about what you can do to slow the spread of coronavirus and the other is about our distance learning plan. 

Both topics require explanation; I hope you’ll bear with me.

First, I want to make a heartfelt appeal for your partnership in the investment of social distancing. It has been recommended by Santa Cruz County and the State of California. While it comes with other risks--businesses may close, food insecurity may rise, and housing pressures may increase--the lessons of the 1918 flu pandemic and the stories of the overwhelmed Italian medical system provide evidence that these sacrifices are worth making. 

Yet they will only work if we all do it--commit to it--together. 

Social isolation will almost certainly be psychologically stressful, but I encourage you to look for tools to work through the isolation. Protecting our vulnerable populations, our grandparents, high risk students, and other loved ones, must be prioritized. I am taking this very seriously and hope you will join me in making the small sacrifices today that will have big impacts on our community long term. I hope you will also consider this with respect to traveling away from Santa Cruz during the coming weeks and Spring Break. Please accept this as a gentle nudge to start thinking on Spring Break as it is coming up and I know many of us have travel plans.

The second message I have is regarding our Distance Learning Plan.  I want to start with the goals of this program:

1. Continuity of education
2. Continuity of community
3. Making space for the unexpected

P-Learning will be your home-base; a single point of contact for your student. Starting Monday, lessons, links to online tools, instructions and attachments will all be posted on class pages on P-Learning. As to the structure of the week, students can expect to see new material for a class made available by the time that class would be scheduled to begin. Attendance won’t be taken by the teacher, rather we are relying on self reporting so please email absent@kirby.org to let us know if your child is ill or otherwise unable to participate (for any reason) in Distance Learning. 

Synchronous Mondays

On Mondays, students will be expected to make their best effort to log into class at the time the class would normally meet.  Teachers will be available in some form of real-time communication format at the time of that class. Students will access the class via a link on P-Learning.  The link will direct them to a class discussion board or video conferencing session over which the teacher is presiding. The time for each class should not exceed 50 minutes on Mondays.  Zero period classes will make arrangements to meet with their classes at another agreed upon time--no need for the students to get up that early.

Flexible Tuesday-Friday

Faculty may offer live video or chat access during the scheduled class period or they may post a time by which students can expect to hear a response from them that day.  The information about whether the teacher can be accessed live during class or via written communication at a later time will be posted on the P-Learning page.  (This is further explained in the Zoom meeting held on Friday, March 13th with our community).

What software tools can my child expect to use?

The primary services we will be using for instruction are:

• P-Learning

• Google Suite (Chat, Meet, Docs, Sheets, etc.)

• Zoom

• EdPuzzle

• YouTube

These resources were chosen for their flexibility between devices and their general user-friendly design.  They should also be accessible via browser. If your child has any challenges accessing these tools, don’t hesitate to request help (by submitting a Help Desk Ticket) so we can support you.

What if I don’t have the technology I need?

One of our main priorities has been to ensure that there is equitable access to resources during this period.  We are still working to meet family needs and are close to filling all of the home technology gaps--we hope this will all be worked out by Monday.  If something changes about your access, let us know right away.

What if my child is feeling lonely?

Our counselor, Geoff Ashmun, will continue to offer services through a secure online system. 

[Details of how to connect with Geoff were included in the original email and have been edited from this public document.]

Another way to let us know that your child would benefit from more connection is by emailing deanofstudents@kirby.org.  This email will reach a list of administrators that will be monitoring the academic and emotional well-being of our students.

The plan to resume school on April 13th (which is AP Review day--April 14th for all other classes) will be reviewed the week of March 30th.  My goal is to send a confirmation of that plan or an update by April 1st. I will be sharing a Spring Break travel disclosure form out at that time as well so we may assess the risk of bringing our community back together.

Feeling energized by the collaboration and support--thank you!

With gratitude,
Christy

PS--In case you missed the Zoom call, please email me with the subject line "Zoom Link" and I will forward it to you. I plan to host another Zoom call next Friday at noon. (Please see my original email from March 13, 2020 at 5:46pm for the link).

Dear Kirby Families,

As we prepare for our extended School Dismissal, I wanted to leave you with some information about our academic program over the next few weeks, some things you can do to help, and how to reach out should you need to communicate with us about anything.

Accessing Kirby Classes

p-Learning (kirby.learning.powerschool.com)
This will be your child’s “home base” for accessing all of Kirby’s academic programs. Our teachers will update their p-Learning pages to reflect how they will conduct their classes. They will include explicit instructions for the new formats of their courses (along with helpful links and attachments), so it is vital that each student carefully review the new expectations. Families, please feel free to also familiarize yourselves with the pages as well.

Office Hours
Our teachers will avail themselves for individual or group help at various specific times during each week. The interactions will be live either by email, Google Hangouts, Zoom conferencing, or p-Learning Discussion Board. Please see each teacher’s p-Learning page for more details.

Video/Audio Needs
Our teachers are using a variety of ways to continue instruction, but many of them will be using software or applications that require the use of sound and video. Many students should be able to use the webcams and mics on their home computers or laptops (and smartphones) to interface with the various applications. However, depending on other environmental factors at home, you may want to consider headphones. In any case, it may be important to find and designate spaces at home where your child would be able to virtually interact with others or at least watch a video recording. Though this is not a comprehensive list, some of the online applications that your child may be expected to use (all of which are free) include: Zoom, Google Hangouts - students should use their Kirby accounts to log on, and YouTube or EdPuzzle.

Also, it is important to note that using video/audio/live-conferencing can drain your device of battery charge much more quickly. Having a charger for those situations would be handy. If your family is on a wireless data plan, please know that audio/video streaming that is done through this service provider will likely go through your available data very quickly. Therefore, please remind your student to use any home internet connection (WiFi or otherwise) for school, if possible.

Other Tech-Related Items
Please let us know if you or your student has a technological need or issue that is keeping them from properly accessing any aspect of their classes. The best way to do this while the building is closed is to complete a Help Desk Ticket: Someone will reach out to you shortly after you submit one.

Please let us know ASAP if your child is in need of a computer with embedded camera/mic/speakers at this time. It is imperative that we have this information as soon as possible so we can check in with your child on Friday before the long dismissal. If you have any immediate need for a computer, please complete a Help Desk form to let us know! (A link to the Help Desk Form is on P-Learning).

Attendance

Over the next several weeks, all Kirby students will be marked “Present” for each class period each day. Should your child become ill and unable to participate in online instruction for one or more periods, please email attendance@kirby.org. This is the only way we will know that your child was “absent” for class that day. Our teachers will be checking the attendance logs and student engagement levels to make sure that no one is falling through the cracks.

Also, I wanted to reiterate what Christy Hutton, our Head of School, wrote the other night, and emphasize that students will not be academically penalized should they not physically attend school today (3/12/20) and/or tomorrow (3/13/20).

Please be assured that all of our teachers are reviewing the new protocols for online instruction in their classes today and tomorrow. They know that this transition can be slightly messy, and they are committed to demonstrating flexibility and understanding in these uncertain times in true Kirby fashion.

Lastly, although many of you are already aware of who to email for various needs, I wanted to provide you with a quick-list of some important ones should you want to connect with us over the next few weeks:

Information Type	Contact	Email
Academic Concerns	Lawrence Shin	academicoffice@kirby.org
Accommodations & Learning Differences	Sally Donnelly	sdonnelly@kirby.org
Grade Reports, Transcripts & Checklists	Stephenie Dekking	sdekking@kirby.org
International Students	Amy Hemmert	ahemmert@kirby.org
Student Attendance		absent@kirby.org
*Please know that due to the school building being closed, you may not want to reach us via phone for any urgent needs.

 

Thank you,

Lawrence Shin
Academic Dean
Academicoffice@kirby.org

Dear Kirby families,

A few families requested clarification about the schedule for Thursday and Friday.  We will be holding a regular block schedule those days, with a 3:35pm release on Thursday and a 2pm release on Friday.  As a reminder, you may want to send your child with an extra bag to bring home belongings that they don't wish to leave at school for a prolonged period of time.  

I also wanted to assure all families that there will be no penalty for keeping your child or children home on Thursday and Friday.  We are suspending academic penalties for absence for the foreseeable future.  I respect the decision of any parent who wishes to keep their child(ren) home.

For the sake of staff and students who are coming to school tomorrow, I ask that everyone be extra vigilant about illness.  If your child has any sort of illness, please keep them home.  If you believe your child to be healthy, I encourage you to check their temperature before leaving the house in the morning as an added precaution for everyone's peace of mind.  

Our faculty came up with some fantastic ideas to keep your kids engaged in the coming weeks.  I'll be sending another email later this week with more details about the structure and expectations of our distance learning plan.  Please let me know as soon as possible if you would like to check out a Chromebook this Friday after school.  We will be ready with a checkout system when students are released that day.  

I can't thank you enough for the continuous notes of support and feedback.  I am so grateful for the partnership of this community.

Warm regards,
Christy

Dear Kirby families,

In spite of the physical isolation, Kirby staff have been able to do collaborative problem solving today that has me feeling optimistic about the road ahead.  

First, I'll offer an update on the status of our campus.  The cleaning company we work with is also responsible for medical offices in the county, and they were able to bring us the benefit of their experience in health hazard mitigation.  We feel confident that the school has been thoroughly cleaned.

Additionally, we were given clearer information about our potential for exposure.  The sick household member of our staff (not a staff member) was told yesterday that they may have been exposed to an active case of COVID-19.  This message was clarified today to suggest that they were only exposed to someone who was previously exposed.  This extra degree of separation suggests that the risk to our community is very low.  With this clarification plus the added measure of the campus deep clean, we believe it is safe to return to school for classes as planned on Thursday.

This experience taught us a few lessons about the pain of uncertainty and the potentially costly delay in the conveyance of accurate, reliable information.  As we watch the shift of San Jose State University and UC Santa Cruz to a largely online format, we are weighing the balance of the anxiety of in-person gatherings against the loss of human contact in the online learning environment.  We have come to the conclusion that the best way to care for our community is to develop a concrete timeline that we can prepare for and work toward together.

We intend to follow through with the plan to finish out the week as described in the previous email.  Tomorrow we will gather as a staff to prepare for our conversion to online learning, and Thursday and Friday we will hold regular in-person classes.  That will be the last time we intend to gather as a community until the end of Spring Break.

As of Monday, we will begin online instruction for all classes.  Students will be instructed to log in during their designated class times with the expectation that teachers will be present via webcam or chat on Mondays and available either during class or in otherwise-scheduled office hours Tuesday through Friday.  It is our hope that this plan will minimize the impact of illness on our community.  If your child is, for any reason beyond their control, unable to participate in classes, it is very important that you email ABSENT@KIRBY.ORG (just as you would on a regular school day) to report their absence.  This way we can keep track of our overall rate of illness in the community and ensure that students don't fall behind.

With this in mind, we will be asking students to prepare to take home all of their belongings on Friday to prepare for in-home learning.  We will also check in with students about their capacity to engage in the technical aspects of the online platforms so they can troubleshoot with their teachers before they are expected to log in on their own.

Although this means we will only have two in-person days before our two-week online learning experience, I request that you continue to monitor your child for illness and keep them home if they are not well.  We will continue to monitor temperatures if we believe a student appears to be unwell at school.  

It occurred to me today that preparing for this on our timeline rather than COVID-19's timeline already feels less anxious and more intentional.  I hope this plan brings you and your child a similar peace of mind as we mindfully enter into this time of uncertainty together.

With gratitude,
Christy Hutton
Head of School

Dear Kirby families,

I am writing to inform you that a member of a Kirby staff household has been exposed to COVID-19.  This person has not been diagnosed with COVID-19; however, they are experiencing illness and have been told to continue monitoring their symptoms.  The safety of our community is very important to us, and I do not want a staff member or student to feel the need to choose between their personal safety and engaging in their job or education.  In the interest of community safety, we plan to close immediately for a deep sanitation cleaning of the campus.  

Accordingly, we will be shifting our previous plans for the upcoming week.  Campus will be closed to ALL VISITORS tomorrow, March 10th, during the deep cleaning.  Campus will also be closed for classes on Wednesday, March 11th, so that faculty may engage in the necessary planning to convert to our distance learning model.  We will not be offering any distance learning programming tomorrow, so we encourage all of our staff and families to take this time to tend to their health. It is our intention to resume regular classes on Thursday, March 12th.  We will have a normal schedule on Thursday and Friday rather than the minimum-day schedule that was communicated last week.

You will receive a message from me by tomorrow at 5pm with an update about the plans for the week.  Since no one will be permitted to work on campus tomorrow, I kindly request that you please reach out to staff via email.

Thank you for your patience and support as we partner in supporting the safety of our community.

With gratitude,
Christy

Dear Kirby families,

In preparing for response scenarios as COVID-19 concerns mount, the Kirby faculty has begun the collaborative and creative work that will be required to deliver curriculum to students at home.  While spirits remain high, this is no small undertaking.

In order to offset some of the extra hours needed for this curriculum re-development, we will modify next week’s schedule, building in two modified-schedule days for professional development with dismissal at 12:15pm on both days. If you have a hardship and are unable to pick up your student at 12:15pm, please contact Laura Lucas. We will be able to provide lunch and supervised study hall until 4pm as needed. The schedule for these days will be:

Thursday, March 12th					Friday		March 13th
Period 0	7:35-8:25					Period 0	7:35-8:25
Period 1	8:30-9:20					Tutorial	8:30-9:20
Period 2	9:25-10:15					Period 5	9:25-10:15
Break	10:15-10:30					Break	10:15-10:30
Period 3	10:30-11:20					Period 6	10:30-11:20
Period 4	11:25-12:15					Period 7	11:25-12:15

 

Distance learning represents an opportunity to approach learning in a new way--team projects must be re-thought, presentations and labs need to evolve, discussions and lessons have to be re-imagined. It will be a different experience from learning at school, should it come to pass. There will be different content expectations and assessments, the weekly schedule will be more flexible, and there will be an added emphasis on connecting with others to reduce isolation. Details on these plans will be shared if or when we implement a distance learning plan. Taking time for this work is important and enables staff to thoughtfully prepare for the possibility of enacting a high-quality distance learning model.

We are also working to ensure that all students are able to experience remote learning equally. If you haven’t taken the accessibility survey, we hope you will take a moment to do so now.  

We have prepared a COVID-19 response page on our website to keep you updated with news and information.  As I shared with the student community this week, we are proud to support the efforts being made to protect vulnerable members of our population from this emerging pandemic.  We will be ready to do our part when the time comes.

With appreciation,

Christy Hutton
Head of School

Dear Kirby families,

As we monitor the trajectory of the diagnosed COVID-19 cases on the West coast, it seems prudent to make preparations to convert to a distance learning model in the next few weeks.  We are fortunate to live in an era where we don’t have to choose between societal safety and continuity of education. There are powerful collaborative tools that should allow us to keep your students engaged in active learning while limiting the impact of the virus on our student, faculty/staff and extended populations.  Heads of schools and administrators across the San Francisco Bay Area gathered for a conference call in an attempt to define best practices in this uncharted territory of school planning. After gathering input from over 50 school leaders, Kirby administration went forward with several decisions that we wanted to let you know about as soon as possible for planning purposes.  

In the absence of a governmental health directive, the criteria that Kirby (and other schools) has defined for transitioning to distance learning is the following:  if any member of a household (including household staff or family members) is presumptively diagnosed by a medical professional with COVID-19, we will close the campus for classes.  To be clear, we have not met this criteria and, to the best of my knowledge, there are still no known cases in Santa Cruz County.

Additionally, we are examining which events in the near future should be scaled back, postponed, or canceled, based on risk factors such as the level of physical interaction, the number of attendees from other exposed communities, and the level of reported cases in the location of the event.

The following events are being modified, canceled, or rescheduled:

• Athletic events in or with communities with COVID-19 “community spread” diagnoses are being canceled
• Parent Education Series nights are being canceled
• Field trips to populated areas or including public transportation outside Santa Cruz county are being canceled, however local field trips or nature-based experiences will go ahead as planned
• The 25th Anniversary Benefit Gala is being rescheduled

This weekend’s planned College Talk for seniors and their parents will go ahead as planned.

The Auction Benefit is postponed until May 30th, as we believe that it would be better to not bring together parents, grandparents, alumni/ae, and distinguished guests from various workplaces and geographic locations during this time.

Athletic events with teams from Santa Cruz county are currently unmodified, and will not be postponed or canceled unless cases are diagnosed in those communities. 

In addition to our normal practice of inviting students to stay home if they are sick, we will be enacting a new protocol in which faculty or staff who identify a student who is visibly ill may request a “class check” in which a class will be interrupted momentarily to privately check the temperatures and overall well-being of the students.  If a student is identified as ill, we will reach out to parents and make arrangements for the student to go home or get a medical evaluation.

As I mentioned in my communication yesterday, we have a faculty meeting scheduled for tomorrow afternoon in which we will collectively prepare.  I will email again tomorrow with any updates that result from this meeting.

The results from yesterday’s survey will be very important to the faculty plans.  If you haven’t yet had a chance to fill out the survey, please take the time to do so by noon tomorrow.  I want to thank this community for the extensions of partnership and appreciation that flooded my email yesterday.  In the interest of sharing resources, I wanted to offer a video (attached) that was shared with me by Stacey Knapp, mother of seniors Cole and Wyatt Edminster, that contains a helpful explanation of COVID-19 that might help in your conversations at home.  

With appreciation,

Christy Hutton
Head of School

Dear Kirby families,

I wanted to let you know a little about what the school is doing to prepare for the ever-increasing likelihood that COVID-19 will impact our community.

We have added signage to the halls and bathrooms about effective hand washing methods.  I've asked all faculty who teach students just before lunch to review the hand washing protocol and give the students early release so that there is time for everyone to use a bathroom sink before eating today and in the future.  We already have hand sanitizer stations installed in several places around the cafe, but we will emphasize to students that hand washing remains the most effective deterrent against the spread of viruses (including flu).  We will monitor the lunch line and food service to ensure that the utensils and food distribution are handled appropriately.

I let faculty know on Friday that we should begin preparation for an online learning model so that we do not have to lose school days in the event of a quarantine.  I ask that you please fill out this survey as soon as possible so we can assess the best method of continued education.

We are having an administrative staff meeting to formalize our plan tomorrow morning and we are gathering faculty on Wednesday after school.  I will have a detailed plan to share with you by the end of the week.

In the meantime, please remind your student(s) how to cover their cough at home and refrain from sending students to school who have had a fever in the last 24 hours.  These protocols will create good habits but also help limit the spread of flu, which is already circulating through our community.  

Will be in touch again soon,

Christy Hutton 
Head of School

PS--As a former member of the academic science research community, I have seen a lot of support for the message in this article.  It's a long read, but worth considering.

Dear Kirby families,

We were contacted by the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency with recommendations about how to prevent the spread of the recently-arrived-to California coronavirus.  

We were informed that to date, Santa Cruz County does not have any confirmed cases of coronavirus. Nor do they have any evidence to suggest that the novel coronavirus is circulating in Santa Cruz County or the Bay Area. 

However, a recently published report has documented asymptomatic transmission of the virus which means a person who does not yet have symptoms spreads the infections to others. How often this occurs is not known, but if asymptomatic transmission does occur, it would likely occur in the day or two before the infected individual starts showing symptoms. 

Evidence of asymptomatic transmission is in part why the federal government has made the decision to formally quarantine all travelers returning to the US from Hubei province (where Wuhan city is located), China, and to ask people returning from other parts of China to voluntarily self-quarantine for 14 days since their last day in China. 

Because of the concern of asymptomatic transmission, especially from travelers who returned from Hubei province, we are now following the federal guidelines and asking Kirby families: 

1. If your child has been in Hubei province within the last 14 days, please keep them home from school for 14 days since their last day in China. Please contact the Santa Cruz County Communicable Disease Unit at 831-454-4114 during business hours or, if after hours, at 831-471-1170, so that they can provide guidance on monitoring your child carefully for symptoms. 

Family members of travelers who visited Hubei province within the last 14 days do not need to quarantine at home, but they should also monitor for symptoms and avoid attending large gatherings. 

2. Students or staff who have been to other areas of mainland China (this excludes Hong Kong) within the last 14 days and who returned February 2 or later, should not come to school for 14 days since the last day in China. Per federal guidance being released today, they should also call the Santa Cruz County Communicable Disease Unit at 831-454-4114 during business hours or, if after hours, at 831-471-1170 for further guidance. 

For students and staff who came back to the U.S. before February 2, they may wish to consider staying home for 14 days after they left mainland China, but it is not mandatory, and they should continue monitoring themselves for symptoms until the end of the 14 days. Per federal guidance being released today, they should also call the public health department during regular business hours (408-885-3980, Monday through Friday, from 8am-5pm) for further guidance. In either case, if they become symptomatic within 14 days since their last day in China with fever (including chills or night sweats), cough, or shortness of breath, they should call a healthcare provider and let them know their travel history and symptoms. 

We encourage all students and staff to take common-sense precautions to prevent the spread of all infectious diseases, including common illnesses like colds and flu: 

• We encourage all students and staff to stay home when they are sick. 
• Those who have a fever at school will be sent home immediately and will need to stay there for at least 24 hours after they no longer have a fever without the use of fever-reducing medicine. 
• Please review proper hand hygiene with students--frequent washing and/or use of hand sanitizer is encouraged at school.
• Please review and encourage proper cough etiquette—cough or sneeze into a tissue, sleeve, or arm. 
• We will perform routine surface cleaning, particularly for high-touch surfaces. 

The Public Health Division has a webpage dedicated to novel coronavirus in English and Spanish at santacruzhealth.org/coronavirus. They have committed to keeping this page up to date as things develop.  It is important that students feel supported and welcome as always at Kirby, so if a student expresses concern to you that a classmate or staff member appears to be sick at school, please call the front desk at 831-423-0658 to let us know so we can approach that person with sensitivity.  Kirby School is committed to keeping the safety and well-being of our students our top priority.  

Thanks for your partnership in keeping our kids healthy!

Warm regards,

Christy Hutton
Head of School