Return to School Plan

We have finalized our Return to School plan and shared it with parents. You can read the booklet for details on our plan. This plan includes more detailed information about:

• Cohorts, group sizes, and physical distancing
• Dropoff and pick up procedures and times
• E-Learning expectations
• COVID-19 response plans
• Guiding resources used to make decisions

We are also hosting grade level town hall meetings to share information and answer parent questions. Dates for the meetings are in the booklet and have been shared, along with Zoom information, via email to parents.

This information has been updated.

Face Coverings
We have finalized our face covering policy. Our policy is based on health recommendations.  We simply want to keep our faculty and students safe. We want to be a good neighbor.

• All teachers and adults on campus will be required to wear a face covering.
• All students in K-8th grades will be required to wear a face covering. 
• Face coverings are optional for toddler-prekindergarten. 

Planning Updates
The Synexis system was installed in the Early Childhood Center first floor this week.  We plan to have the system in place throughout the school before August 20th. The Synexis system uses DHP to safely lower the microbial and viral load in the air and on surfaces. You can read more about Synexis here. This system will make our overall environment healthier and safer.   

We have ordered seven 30 x 20 ft commercial grade tents for outdoor classrooms.  Our Wi-Fi is being expanded to cover the tent areas. The tents will be installed the last week of July. We are working on a plan to outfit the outside rooms for student use.

We purchased the Tersano SAO system to allow us to create our own safe sanitizing products in house.  The SAO system infuses water with aqueous ozone (SAO) to create safe, green products that will be used by our team to clean and sanitize throughout the day.  We will refill these and issue to teachers to allow for disinfecting during the school day.  

Additional sinks will be installed next week. We are adding touchless sinks in the ECC commons, another sink area in the first and second grade commons area, two additional sink areas on the second floor, and two additional sink areas in the middle school. 

We are ordering a touchless hand sanitizer dispenser for the interior of all the classrooms (where age appropriate!).  We have installed other hand sanitizer stations throughout the building.

Our Return to School Task Forces have been working hard to develop initial plans for safely bringing students and faculty back to campus in August. Read the details shared above on this page to understand what initial procedures we have planned for the early days of the 20-21 school year. We are taking guidance from local health officials, and we anticipate needing to make adjustments to our plan in the coming weeks.

Here are some highlights from our plan:

• We are installing an air filtration system to safely lower the microbial and viral load in the air and on surfaces. You can read more about Synexis here. This system will combat COVID-19 as well as influenza and make our overall environment healthier and safer.   
• We will begin each day with chapel, but we will start the school year with modifications. Students will have classroom chapels in toddler through fifth grade and advisory chapels in middle school. On Fridays, we will host a virtual all school chapel that will be live streamed to the classrooms and the larger community. 
• We will offer an on-campus option and a distance learning option for families with a COVID-19 related need. We are taking steps to prepare for a simultaneous delivery of a live and virtual option.
• All students in grades K-8 will be issued an individual iPad.  We currently use devices in K-5, but we have used a shared device and a shared cart approach. This 1:1 technology expansion will allow us to avoid shared devices and will help students learn skills and build familiarity with our core digital tools.
• If we have a positive case within the community, we may shift all or parts of the school to distance learning for a short period. We will consult with the Kansas City Department of Health on school closures.

Our Return to School Task Forces have been gearing up for August.  We have a board advisory team and a cross divisional faculty team reviewing options and preparing for the fall. We are also benchmarking and studying plans issued in other parts of the country. We are focused on health and safety, academic excellence, flexibility, and connection. 

Based on the recent parent survey results, we expect most families will elect to return to campus in August. As of now, we plan to offer the on-campus option and an E-learning option for families with a COVID-19 related need.  We are currently reviewing the best way to deliver on-campus and E-learning options simultaneously and are confident that we will find a dynamic path forward.

The final academic program design and on-campus health and safety measures will reflect up-to-date health guidelines and requirements set by Kansas City.  We expect the guidelines will continue to evolve over the next eight weeks, and we will continue to modify our plans.  We hope to have more clarity in early July.

We know some things will remain constant.  We will offer daily chapel, we will offer a stellar academic program, and we will build connection and support our community.  St. Paul’s is a special place.  We will likely need to adjust to meet health guidelines, but our heart, our mission, and our values will not change. 

We will share more concrete details about the health and safety plan and the academic options soon. 

Internally, we have started to plan for August and our return to school. We are forming two groups to help us plan—a board level return to school task force and an internal academic review team. Soon, we will send some follow-up surveys and gather more parent information.   We will have a comprehensive back to school plan in place as soon as possible and will share community updates throughout the planning process.