Hello Families! I have missed you all so much, so it is with great excitement that Avalon is reopening tomorrow, April 6th! Please familiarize yourself with our new COVID-19 action plan below.
Also below is a highlight of our next week and other general information.
COVID-19 ACTION PLAN, effective 4/6/20
- Opening back up on Mon., April 6th under the shelter-in-place exception as a provider for Essential Services.
- Keeping the normally scheduled time / days / routine.
- Keeping to the same group of children and small ratio.
- The same attendance / tuition policy is in effect. *(See note below)
- Parents are to text / call me when they arrive for drop-off and pick-up so I can come to the door (please keep six feet back from the door and from other parents). No sign-in/sign-outs; I will be maintaining the attendance sheets for now.
- Children will immediately take off their shoes, sanitize / wash their hands, and have a morning health check of symptoms and temperature (this goes for all residents in the house too). I have individual thermometer coverings for everyone. Because of the time now required to properly check-in children, I will not be accepting any drop-offs after 8:55am unless there is prior approval.
- The same vigorous hand washing, cleaning, and disinfecting will be continued. All communal items that cannot be disinfected (e.g. play-doh, play sand, water table, etc.) on a daily basis will be put away, nor will we be doing group cooking/baking projects. Any such things/activities will be individual projects for individual use.
- Absolutely NO illness symptoms (even mild): running nose/congestion, repeated coughing / sneezing, diarrhea (even once), stomach ache/nausea, lethargy, shortness of breath, temperature 99.0F+, etcetera.
- If your child becomes ill with a fever, you must have a negative result from a COVID-19 test before returning to school in addition to a mandatory 3-days home.
- If someone in your house catches COVID-19, before returning to school, your child and each person in the house must show a negative test result taken 14-days after all have recovered. Proof of recovery date (negative result) and negative tests results are required in the form of the actual test result and an official doctor’s note. Integrity within our community of families is essential.
- If an enrolled child catches COVID-19, Avalon will have an immediate decontamination day (open, but no one can attend) so I can conduct interviews, assess the situation, report to the local health department, and have extra cleaning. Direct exposure does not mean one has automatically “caught” this, but if #10 or #11 happens, I will be taking a second round of temperature checks daily at 1pm for the next 14-days.
- No person or place can guarantee a contagion-free environment; your enrollment and attendance is voluntary and is at your own discretion at all times.
*NOTE: About enrollment and tuition
ATTENDING: When I reopen Mon., 4/6/20, regular tuition will be due if attending.
NOT ATTENDING: If your child will remain enrolled, but not attend for April, only half of your tuition is due: $500 for monthly or $120 for weekly with the regular due dates. To balance out payment dates/amounts for those paying monthly, I will be canceling the Summer Break, which will balance out the weeks paid to reflect the original calculation. If you are facing a financial hardship, you may use your two-week deposit for April to hold your child’s spot.
April learning theme, “Life on the Farm”
Since the children haven’t been here for a few weeks and the dynamic will be different now, I am going to keep the structured activities (STEM, Arts and Crafts) that were planned for this theme at a minimum to allow for more free play and Montessori work as they reconnect with each other and the environment.
Though some of the educational stores I go to for teaching supplies have delivery, I am trying to limit all contact and Amazon deliveries, so I will have to get very creative with the supplies we already have. We won’t be making many (if any) take-home projects to keep an even greater limit on items going back and forth.
Special Learning Day
Sunday, April 12th is Easter, which we will observe on Friday, April 10th with an Easter Egg hunt and dyeing eggs (food-based, natural dyes). There will be only a couple of eggs filled with a tiny amount of candies, the rest of the egg “treats” being small toys.
I have Easter baskets for all the children (I gathered everything in them from the store back in February!), so I would love to drop off baskets to those who are not attending if parents are okay with that–I will text you individually.
Zoom Circle Time
For those not attending, please feel free to join us for Circle Time via Zoom (meeting code will be the same as it has been) every morning at 9am, MON-FRI, (it will be about 20 or so minutes long).
I will automatically mute all participants at the start of the meeting. (Please explain this to your children.) For attendance and sharing, I will un-mute each one at a time and then have everyone un-muted for our music portion.
Snacks and Lunch Menu
This has been a challenging time for supplies and food. While whole grains are still being used, the organic items (other than milk) like fruits, vegetables, meat, etc. may not be available daily and will have non-organic items as a substitute when needed. Because availability of menu items cannot be guaranteed, rather than posting a spring menu, I will just record our snacks and lunches for the week to be published in our weekly updates.
Thank you families! Have a wonderful week!
Avalon Childcare and Preschool 