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Coates Families,
Welcome back from spring break! I’m sure that many of you have seen the e-Notify email from Superintended Brabrand (sent yesterday around 3:50) regarding the updated CDC guidelines and how it affects in-person students’ experience at school. This message is intended to explain how that applies to Coates. Much of my message below is repeating what I wrote in my News You Choose email message from March 26, when we were anticipating applying these reductions in social distancing.
We are now free to reduce our distance between students in class from 6 feet to 3 feet, but we must maintain at least 6 feet between them when their masks are removed. Since most of our classes continue to have their lunch time in their classroom (and lunch is an obvious mask break), we continue to have our desks 6 feet apart in most spaces.
We have been using the Coates cafeteria for lunch since Return to School started, but we could only accommodate 2 classes at a time without distancing practices (previously 10 feet). We have reduced the spacing to 6 feet in the cafeteria, and this allows us to fit 3 classes there simultaneously. That is still not enough to host all classes with the same lunch time. Therefore, most classes are on a rotation schedule – some days having lunch in their classroom and some days in the cafeteria. For context: pre-pandemic, we would routinely fit 2 grade levels into the cafeteria for lunch at the same time – usually 8 classes. The timeframe for lunch for K-6th grades is from 11:30-2:40 already so we are not able to spread it out further.
I share this so that you realize that there are conditions that make a 4-day program for all in-person students challenging, and we cannot, at this time, offer 4 days onsite to all in-person students.
We are, of course, committed to filling seats and maximizing our capacity for in-person school. This week, we have been analyzing student academic needs and will be inviting in-person students to 4 days per week of school based on that. There is no parent application process, but, as always, I invite parents to email me and Mrs. King whenever they have requests of any kind. Please bear in mind, that we may not be able to accommodate all requests. The deadline has passed for virtual parents to request in-person, but we maintain our waitlist of parents who requested before March 26.
Thanks for your understanding.
Jesse Kraft, Principal (jkraft@fcps.edu)
Jessica King, Ass’t Principal (jaking@fcps.edu )
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