I'll go there: will BS have an in-person winter 2021 semester?

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
41

@one1ofeach No, honestly I do not believe people will give up Thanksgiving, Xmas and other holidays based on this information. At all. Older people have figured out what makes sense for them. Younger people aren’t worried and the rest are making calculated assessments. Maybe if we were early in this cycle. But it’s going to be a long winter and mental health also is a factor.

I believe our family is on the really conservative side in terms of sheltering in place and I can tell you this won’t have an impact on who goes where . That being said, I don’t think most people in the US will travel by air and most will be reluctant to go to states which have higher rates than where they are.

Time will tell.

42

We’re definitely giving up Thanksgiving and Christmas, at least as we’ve traditionally celebrated: 30-40 people across 3 generations, 10-12 family units - not all of whom are related - coming from several states. Now? No way. No way are we risking one anothers health, nor our kids’ ability to actually get to school assuming it happens. No way.

43

We’ve cancelled all holidays. No one is going or coming. We’re not even planning special meals, phone calls, or gifts. Rather than modify, make do, or improvise, we’re just going to slide through to next year with no recognition of the holidays and resume celebrations next fall/winter. The upside is that this will be the easiest season ever.

44

@DroidsLookingFor Does this mean I’m not bringing D1-4 and H?! (calls Delta to cancel)

45

@Calliemomofgirls no I meant besides you all!

46

We have a small family (biggest gathering ever is about 12) , and fragile, elderly parents who literally may not have another holiday in them, covid or no covid. Family is the most important thing to them, except possibly my grandmother’s stuffing recipe.

Deciding what to do is a weighing of which option I will regret more. My brother and I are coming down on different sides of that scale. For me, the tie breaker is to do what my parents want. I am not worried about them getting us sick - it is 100% us getting them sick. So if they want to take the risk, I am there, ready to make stuffing. But my brother’s decision not to come is the correct one, too.

And so is my other brother’s decision not to come. He would have to take a flight to get here and hasn’t seen my parents in a year. It is so hard on him.

47

There’s been a fair amount of discussion at Lawrenceville saying that the school will be full virtual in the winter — all the teachers don’t seem very optimistic, and apparently a trustee’s child claims that the trustees have already made the decision to go remote.

48

While I hate this decision (if its true), I just can’t see students having a valuable experience through winter term if Lville doesn’t loosen the restrictions. Students would basically go from their rooms to class, back to their rooms all day when the weather is bad (they still can’t eat in the dining hall, or hang out in each others rooms). There is no good choice here.

49

Lville just announced they’ll be virtual for winter term. Sigh.

50

So ISL cancelled winter season almost two weeks ago. Have any of the schools actually told their players about this yet? Ours has not.

We are virtual after thanksgiving until
January 2 at which point I assume kids will do the same dance of testing 3x over the course of a week and school will start. I am fairly confident this will happen. Despite rising numbers in MA, there has not been a single case at school (kids and faculty/staff are tested once a week and sewage is tested). It seems like there could not be a single reason given for closing school based on the zero cases so far.

51

@one1ofeach The reason would be exactly what @cityran said, they just cannot provide good enough experience to justify bringing kids back. If there is no indoor dining and several limit on gatherings, the kids would indeed be stuck going from class to their dorm room with crappy to go food with no social or other outlet. I know my kid is telling me the experience is not great already, really hard to see or spend any meaningful time with friends, especially the ones not in the same dorm. And there is a huge rash of covid violations as kids just cannot comply with all those restrictions, and bunch of kids also hated it enough to decide to just go home apparently. It is bound to only get worse now that time changed. Thankfully the weather has been good but that too won’t last. I think since your kids are day students they don’t feel all effects as they get to go home, take their masks off, shoot hoops in the driveway, have homemade meals at the table. At our school kids can’t take masks off unless in their dorm room.

52

@417WHB

While I agree wholeheartedly that the experience is very different for boarders than day students, I do think restrictions vary a ton between schools as well. Many BSs have been eating in the dining halls since day one, have allowed students to hang out in each other’s rooms, and have heated tents, allowing for more space to gather. All of those things would make winter term a more viable option. I was really hoping Lville was working on plans to allow those things moving forward (yes, I know the state has some say, but I still feel like the school should have eased up on restrictions), but clearly, that is not their intention.

Having said that, we keep hearing of kids choosing to go home from other schools (lville too I’m sure, we just dont know anyone else there) where the rules are more relaxed, so it’s clear there are unhappy/frustrated students and families across the board.

53

@one1ofeach Mine knew from a coach. It was also posted on the “news” dashboard on Oct 27th and in “athletics” on the website.

54

Hmm, going to check my dashboard.

55

I agree with @cityran that the boarding experience at different schools varies widely. My son is in his third year boarding at Mercersburg, and he is NOT miserable. Has it been perfect or ideal? Certainly not. But his biggest fear right now is that school will get shut down at some point this year and he will have to be remote at home, like last Spring. Those months, being separated from his friends, were really hard on him. When I asked him a few weeks ago if he wanted to be on campus or virtual for winter, he told me - with no hesitation - that he wanted to be on campus.

We certainly recognize that he has the advantage of an established group of friends, and the majority of them were placed all in the same dorm and even same floor. He had football, his first love, to practice and play this fall. Even though there were no interscholastic games, there were inter-squad games on campus. His biggest challenge was taking an AP science and honors math course in 9 weeks during the fall. It was hard to adjust to a new block schedule, and the first few weeks were rough. But since he found his groove, he has improved significantly.

I do feel that the leadership at Mercersburg has put a lot of time and energy into creating a positive student experience during these times. I know they are working on creating indoor and outdoor spaces this winter for kids to socialize outside of the dorms. Using the field house as well as heated tent areas were mentioned during our last parent zoom meeting. As @hellomaisy mentioned above, they come home for Thanksgiving and will return January 9th /10th for an on campus quarantine period, that will also include pre-trip covid testing, plus 2 more rounds of testing once they get there to create the bubble. The process worked well in the fall, and I am hopeful and optimistic that it can work again in January.

I do think that schools can be creative and be safe, while offering up many of the benefits that you expect from a boarding school. Our local public schools are either hybrid or fully remote this fall. The hybrids will soon change to all remote due to rising case levels in our area. So I am so grateful that my kids are in private school and get to attend in person every day. It makes it worth every penny.

As I mentioned before, I also have a 9th grader who attends another local boarding school as a day student. In a normal year, the school would have a 50/50 split of day and boarding students. This fall most of the international students stayed remote, so it’s been more like 80/20 day / boarding ratio. In September they did not require any pre-trip covid testing, nor on campus testing, nor quarantine. With the small boarding population this year, they are operating the same way that private day schools are operating in our area. Thankfully, there have been no positive cases on campus . The school is reopening for in person instruction after Thanksgiving, but has asked all families to make a choice regarding Thanksgiving celebrations. They have stated that families who celebrate the holiday with others outside of their household, will be asked to quarantine and take their classes remotely for two weeks. They are working on the honor system, so they can’t enforce it, but are asking parents to do the right thing to protect their community.

As for January, their current plan is to start on time on January 5th, but have everyone be remote for the first week. Then classes will begin on campus the week after, although there is no indication at this time that testing will be required. Very different approach to the school year, but so far its been working.

56

PA just announced NO ONE on campus for January, and Seniors-only on campus for the balance of winter term, from Feb 1 - on through Spring Break.

57

PA’s plan is quite disappointing.

So far, it has been incredibly successful from a health perspective for boarding students being on campus. PA has administered almost 14,000 tests and I think only one positive result for boarders and it was at the start of Sept. I would have this this would give PA confidence to continue with having all boarders on campus.

The only risk area this Fall has been with Day students who have been allowed to do all sorts of things off campus (including club sports) and then come back/forth to campus. But even with that, I think just a few positive tests.

However, the plan is now fully Remote from start of Dec through Jan. Then 12th graders ONLY are invited to board from end of Jan through early Mar. And 12th grade DAY students invited to board too, but not typical other grade boarders.

How is that consistent with the focus on Equity and Inclusion?

Also, then having normal Spring Break. WHY??? For what purpose? Having a Spring break seems to just complicate things and not useful. Not like people will go on trips. Other schools are smartly canceling Spring Break. You can give kids a break from classes, but have them stay on campus with other activities/practices, etc.

58

I had a different take on the PA plan. Virtual winter already seemed very likely in my mind. I LIKE that they gave the limited boarding slots to seniors. As much as others are disappointed not to be on campus, I feel like this gives the seniors a fun chance to be all together, boarders and day students all living in dorms and having campus for themselves. And, I’m going to guess that without day students, they will have some more flexibility (in terms of social distancing). Also, I liked that they aren’t charging day students for boarding. (I’m curious if there will be boarders who freak out about that, but I suppose that battle will happen away from my eyes.)

I think we had already assumed winter would be virtual so to hear that some lemonade could come from the lemons was a good thing from our perspective, even if we personally won’t benefit.

Spring – they kicked the can down the road on that one. I don’t blame them – why deal with an uproar before really knowing what will need to happen. However, I would be very surprised if they end up being able to return all cohorts, and have both day and boarding students on campus for spring. I could be wrong.

The only big surprise for me was keeping spring break. I thought it might go away and get coupled with an earlier school year, as some schools are doing. It really seems like a LOT of work to get all those cohorts filing through, tested, quarantined and stabilized. (Brings me back to: I have some doubts on that happening come spring.)

59

Related to PA, the idea that that it is nice that the school gave the “limited boarding slots” to seniors is a false notion. The boarding slots do not need to be “limited” like this.

Not one boarding student at PA contracted COVID this fall on campus. It was a highly successful experience from a health perspective. How could that not give them confidence to proceed forward? Peer schools are. And even if some had contracted COVID, it can be managed and dealt with.

If anything, require day students to commit to limiting outside activities/sports if they want to be on campus (or otherwise could choose to be remote).

I am coming to the view that PA has too much endowment $ and a sense that they can forever get more applicants and It causes them to proceed in a bureaucratic mode to take absolutely zero risk and have no care about current students being being shafted and unhappy and choosing to leave. The remote learning experience at PA is terrible.

What is the primary objective - to never have one student ever contract COVID on campus?? Just shut the school down forever then.

60

Obviously I am not a PA parent, but what you wrote above is exactly what I have been thinking as an observer of this situation. Schools who need to work harder to attract students, will work harder to retain them and keep them happy.

Has PA offered a tuition discount for this online winter term?