Safety precautions and routines as school begins

Posted on September 1, 2020

August 13, 2020

Dear St. Ambrose School Community:

I hope all is well and that you are enjoying the last days of summer.  In the interest of full transparency, it is my intent to keep you always informed.

As we prepared to receive your children, I have some important announcements that I would like to share with all of you.

I am very happy to announce that we were able to replace our boys’ and girls’ bathrooms sinks with touchless faucets and touchless paper towel dispensers

The safety of our students, faculty and staff is my main priority; as a result, I have incorporated an extra step to ensure that we can remain open through this pandemic.  I will ask all parents to do a daily health assessment of their child before arriving at school.  Every parent will receive a link each morning to be completed prior to your child’s arrival at school.  These forms will be kept private and confidential.  In addition, we will also do temperature checks as it is stated in our re-opening plan.  This self-check assessment will also be required for all faculty and staff prior to entering our building.  Please know that we will have to work together in these efforts of keeping our school open. This will require your help in being vigilant and keeping children at home when ill.

Our school mass schedule will continue to be every Thursday at 9:00 AM.  To keep all CDC recommendations and guidelines in place, we have decided to rotate our student’s attendance.  Two grades will attend Mass every Thursday while the remaining grades livestream the Mass into their classrooms.  Each grade will sit on the opposite sides of our church from the daily mass goers, but in separate sections.  This will prevent the mix of students with the daily mass goers and allow them to spread out while remaining six feet apart.

In June we purchased the UVCA lighting with the promise that it will be arriving before August 26.  Unfortunately, due to many recent demands, the shipment is delayed and will not arrive at our school until the week of August 24.  Therefore, we will be disinfecting our building every night thoroughly after students go home and throughout the day.  In addition, we will be hiring an extra full-time custodial staff to further increase the cleaning of the school. We have worked very hard to have everything ready for our students, but this pandemic brings many challenges that we will have to overcome together as a family and the delay on the UVCA lighting is one of them.

 

Below you will find useful tips to help you and our students prepare to come back to school:

• Practice wearing a mask. Neck gaiter masks will not be allowed as they have proven not be effective in reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission
• Remind children about 6 ft distancing. Desks will be spread out and children will have to remain seated. In addition to recess, we will provide regular breaks throughout the day.
• Frequent hand washing
• Bring in school supplies in small batches that students can carry on their own as adults will not be allowed in the building
• Lunch/snack items should be easy for children to open independently. Practice at home!
• Avoid juice pouches (like Capri Sun)
• Pack juice boxes only if your child can open without spilling
• Break the seal on water bottles before packing
• No glass containers
• No nut products of any kind – including Lunchables, granola bars, peanut butter crackers
• Provide pre-cut, peeled fruits & vegetables
• Cut top of bananas for easy peeling
• Use easy-to-open containers only (like Zip-Loc bags, rather than Tupperware)
• Provide utensils & napkins
• Pack fruit cups, pudding & yogurt containers only if your child can open them easily
• Avoid packaging that must be cut open with scissors

I know that the challenges we face with the pandemic are very hard to assimilate, but these challenges are only given to us because God knows that our faith is strong enough to get us through them together.

Yours in Christ,

Maria Teresa Tejada

Principal

Announcement re: safety routines and precautions before school starts 8-13-2020