Wintry Bees!

Greetings Parents and Community Members,

We are currently full steam ahead in planning for our January 25th and February 1st Phase II of Return and Learn. You can now access my most recent reopening Town Hall at morrisbrandon.com or directly linked HERE. Yesterday, January 12, our Morris Brandon reopening plan was also posted on our website. While this is just a draft, you can begin to see the plan for a 4 day a week return for students in Kindergarten through 5th grade. Since things are moving forward at a fast pace, I have highlighted a couple bulleted points for you below.

• We are working hard to implement mitigation strategies that would allow for a 4 day a week return for all students that choose to return for in person instruction.
• Our priority is to protect our cohorts of students. This means that students will only be with others from their class for the entire school day, outside of possible transportation.
• Students will be spaced out in classrooms to the greatest extent possible. Using our capacity dashboard has allowed us to calculate square footage and the number of students that can be adequately spaced out within a classroom at 6ft apart.
• We have purchased desk shields for all students and staff that are choosing to return in person.
• Masks are required at all times when in the building, no exceptions!

Our staff and admin are working incredibly hard to ensure that we can mirror as close to a normal school day as possible, given these unique circumstances. While students must eat breakfast and lunch in the classrooms, we have created a schedule that would allow for students to have one 30 minute recess a day in one of four recess zones as well as have a 40 minute specials block where students will be able to travel to PE, Art, and Music, all in much larger spaces. We have allotted 10 minutes in between each special to allow for a clearing and fogging of high use areas as well. We are excited to continue to offer French outside of the specials block on an A/B rotation from Kindergarten all the way to 5th grade. Because of our large interest for face to face learning at Brandon, there are a few adjustments that we have had to make in order to keep safety for students and staff at the forefront of everything we do. These may include:

• Moving larger homerooms like DLI to larger, more open classrooms.
• Moving students from a homeroom that has larger intent to return numbers, to a smaller one, in order to better accommodate those larger class sizes.
• Dividing up a homeroom class because the teacher will become the grade level virtual teacher.
• Designating a new homeroom teacher to a class that has a teacher who will be teaching virtually.

All families will be contacted if their child has a new homeroom teacher on January 14 and a communication from all homeroom teachers will come this Friday, January 15. Please be on the lookout for this email as there will be important information included like meal interest forms, transportation documents, and what to bring items for day one of Return to Learn.

Yesterday, we also posted a DRAFT of our reopening plan at www.Morrisbrandon.com that can also be found HERE. Please take a look as you will see information around how arrival, dismissal, in person and virtual classes will look. I’ve highlighted a couple of bullet points below:

• Arrival (carpool, bus, walkers) at PC and MC will be extended by 15 minutes and will go from 7:30-8:15am.
• There will be 4 entrances at PC for students. All bus riders will enter through the gym for health screening and temp check and all carpool and walkers will enter through their designated grade level doors (KK-Main entrance, 1st- Media Center entrance, 2nd- double doors on 2nd grade hall). All entrances will be clearly marked and labeled.
• The same design will be used at MC as well. There will be 3rd-5th grade entrances for both car riders and walkers at the front of the building, and designated grade level entrances in the courtyard where all students will enter to get their temperature checked and proceed to class.
• Bus routes should be available on January 15th for students opting to ride the bus.

In just a few short days, we will release a PC reopening video (and show them on our AM announcements) so students and families are aware of what to expect on January 25 in regard to carpool, building entry, and mitigation strategies. There is still a lot that needs to be done by then, but we are confident in the progress we’ve made and are excited about the return of our students in the coming weeks. Please keep in mind that all students will begin a new schedule on January 25 and an email communication from your child’s face to face or virtual teacher will be sent on January 15. 

I hope today is a great asynchronous Wednesday! Don’t forget to show our AM announcements if you have not done so already HERE and have your students participate in some of our specialist clubs throughout the day. These clubs will conclude on January 27!

Take care and be sure to look out for more information in the coming days. 

j