Wow. I am pretty paranoid about covid, and understand a campus being conservative. But not wanting input is surprising. I didn’t realize that a head of school could have that kind of unilateral authority.
I am also surprised. But remember that Groton’s headmaster practically has celebrity status in the headmaster world. I do think it’s a bit odd to just come out and say to parents, well at least one that I know of, that you don’t care about feedback, in writing.
I would not be surprised if Groton’s head has had more than a year, and hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of unsolicited “feedback” most of which was probably unhelpful. I can only imagine the stress he’s under. He is a smart man. He’s not winging it. He is listening to public health experts.
I have zero knowledge or connection to Groton, but I will eat my hat if I’m wrong about what I’ve written.
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If you’ve never had a kid at Groton I don’t think you can not comprehend how much the school keeps parents at arms length. They could easily have set up a system to give feedback in a reasonable way. Instead it’s directed straight to the headmaster, who then says straight up he doesn’t care. Usually I agree with you @cinnamon1212 but in this case you’re off base. I’ve heard the warm way you talk about Hotchkiss, that is missing in Groton’s relationship with all the parents I know personally.
And in the end, there should be an appropriate way for kids and parents to have their concerns heard by a school. At Groton that does not exist. Sure there may be crazy parents whose feedback is ridiculous, there may also be parents who have very valid concerns and good ideas.
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What did they do last year when schools closed, etc? Cate wasn’t perfect by any means, but they did regular parent zoom calls. Parents were all muted but could ask questions in the chat. It helped people feel like they had an opportunity to be involved, even if it changed nothing. I think Cate had it a little easier though, because the state and county dictated rigid covid rules. The school was never outside those guidelines, which were a lot more strict than other places. The school could legit say “we have no choice” to how they did masks, sports, quarantine, etc.
I wish they could have, honestly, especially on kids being able to share dorm spaces and communal meals. That was rough. And strict enforcement of social distancing was impossible, truth be told. Fingers crossed everything works ok now they have loosened up. These kids need to be normal kids again.
I actually prefer the arms length approach. In both my kids’ LDS, there is/was way too much parent involvement and I think it’s difficult for the administration to do a good job when they’re busy trying to placate individual parents. Each parent complaining is only concerned with their own child/children; the school administration should be concerned with the entire school community. Of course there should be a happy medium in here somewhere, but I hate the sense of entitlement many parents seem to have these days when it comes to private school expectations (not pointing at anyone here, just sharing my own personal experience). One of the reasons we are choosing BS for our kids is because I assumed all BSs still had the arms length approach they had when I attended. At kiddo1’s school, it is very clear to me that there are two very influential parent categories, neither of which is fighting for things that benefit my child. It’s beyond frustrating, and it’s one thing we will look at more closely when choosing a school for kiddo2.
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Back on topic, we have drop off in a few days, and the school is sticking to their most recent plan: testing and masks inside for the first two weeks, but otherwise a normal experience. Orientation for parents and students will be in full swing. We are excited to attend our first actual parent event! Well, I may be a tad more excited than my husband…his response: we are supposed to move kiddo1 in and then meet other parents all sweaty and gross?? And yes, he will in fact be sweaty and gross, as I moved kiddo1 in and out twice last year, so he gets to do all the heavy lifting this year! 
ETA: I do understand the disappointment about Groton’s rules. We would be very frustrated if we weren’t allowed in kiddo1’s dorm this year (as my husband wasn’t allowed in last year either). We felt similarly last year when kiddo1’s school seemed to have much stricter covid protocol than the majority of BSs. I hope that Groton is able to ease up on rules quickly, and that your child will have as close to a normal year as possible.
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Lol. Absolutely nothing like that. Parents got emails telling us what would and would not be allowed. There was zero effort to engage parents or ask us how kids were doing with pandemic rules.
Of the many crazy situations that happened as a result of COVID quarantine rules last year, was the enforced isolation inside the dorm rooms at the start of the year. It was our experience (not all) that the rules for being allowed outside, going to the bathroom, doing wash, and interacting with hall-mates varied greatly depending on the dorm parent. My Kiddo’s dorm parent was overtly resentful of the extra work and duties (that faculty member is now gone). At one point, my kiddo had not been allowed outside for 3 days - yet watched other students with their “pods” being allowed to get fresh air. I did not want to seem like “that parent”. My kiddo took action and phoned their advisor for help. The advisor came over to the dorm and took Kiddo, along with a couple of other students (locked in) out for a socially distant walk.
At some point during the year, we sent a polite suggestion to the HOS that he needed to meet up with faculty and hear what their concerns were. Likewise, we really wanted the HOS to hear from students. The HOS took time and listened. Not sure if there was time to meet, however.
Next week, the school is going to start testing students again - I think with the Rapid test. The problem with this is that there will inevitably be false positives with the Rapid Test - on kids who are fully vaccinated.
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Sounds very reasonable. This is exactly the sort of thing that I would like to be able to do at Groton.
As an opposite example, last year day students were continually forgotten about so plans would be made and day students excluded. As in no one making plans remembered that they existed and so no plans were made for how to deal with the day students. This continued until the LAST DAY of school - occasionally a parent or two would email and remind the school “how does this apply to day students” but no one ever seemed to remember for the next time and no one ever realized how damaging some of the rules ended up being for those kids. There was NO avenue to explain concerns, for the kids or the parents.
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Sounds pretty stressful.
And thanks for agreeing with me, at least most of the time I actually think my points and yours aren’t necessarily contradictory. Mine just are that the Head has been bombarded from all sides, is under a lot of stress, and is working with public health experts. Your point is that parent/school communications are bad. Both sets of points can be true!
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@Golfgr8 , just wanted to say I have known 4 vaxed folks who got positive tests - not false – as a result of getting a test to travel! They were all shocked. And completely asymptomatic. it was helpful as they understood the value of isolating away from folks with under 12 year old kids. Very weird dynamic.
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Hi@gardenstategal -[quote=“gardenstategal, post:72, topic:3535990, full:true”]
@Golfgr8 , just wanted to say I have known 4 vaxed folks who got positive tests - not false – as a result of getting a test to travel! They were all shocked. And completely asymptomatic. it was helpful as they understood the value of isolating away from folks with under 12 year old kids. Very weird dynamic.
[/quote]
Hi @gardenstategal -
First, are you guys ok in NJ? Hoping all is ok! I saw how the flooding has impacted so many communities down there!
Yes - my DH has worked with 3 guys who all had breakthrough COVID after having had their jabs back in January. They did not have to be hospitalized - they report it feeling like a mild flu. DH got his 3rd shot a few weeks ago. What I am hearing is that people should get a 3rd shot if their last vaccine was more than 6 or 7 months ago. I just read an article about a 4th jab being tested out by Pfizer overseas.
Down here in the swamp, a local school had an outbreak amongst it’s grade school-age students.
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@Golfgr8 We live in one of the hard hit NJ towns. It was epic. We were bemoaning our damage until we saw what had happened to neighbors and friends. We have definitely experienced extreme weather over the years (had a tornado do some landscapingfor us earlierthis summer!), and flash floods are common enough that I actually know the topo map of our area so I can navigate when that happens. But this was in a special realm of extreme. Really hoping it was a true outlier and not the new normal for bad storms! Good thing – for us, just stuff and inconvenience-- we’re all fine!
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@gardenstategal - thank goodness you all are ok! Thinking of you in navigating through this challenging time. Hoping the damage is not severe!
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Whew - glad you are ok and the damage is minimal. Scary stuff.
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I work with kids with special needs that are too young to be vaccinated. The teachers in my program were some of the first people to get vaccinated in the second round (right after first responders) because of the need for our students to be in school full time. This summer (I did not work the summer program), of the 6 teachers in my room, three got Covid. One brought it back from a wedding, passed it to two co-workers and they passed it on to their husbands. Pretty much backs up the R8 number for Covid transmission.
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Please share what you hear from schools regarding flu shots and timing of flu shots this year ….wondering how to space it out from the vaccine and the “booster”. In the past, our students received the flu shot in October.
Groton gives flu shots the first day at registration. I asked my pediatrician. He kind of shrugged - I don’t think kids are getting third doses of covid vaccine any time soon so it’s not likely to matter. During trials the antibody tigers for kids were waaaaayyy higher than adults. Even way higher than say a mid twenty year old.