Q&A on Coronavirus
How will SBH respond to the coronavirus this coming year?
As we get ready for another school year starting next month, all of us have wondered what life will be like in this “new normal” as we come to terms with living alongside covid-19. These questions perhaps are even more important when we think of what kind of environment our children will be raised in. The following is administrative team’s plan of what we may encounter this coming school year, and how we plan to approach questions that may arise.
What precautions will SBH be taking to minimize the spread of the coronavirus on campus?
There are a number of common sense things that we will implement in our life together on campus.
Training of teachers on what to do when a student may be ill (i.e. taking their temperature, calling home, advising if going home is the best course of action, etc.).
Maintain small class sizes of 13 or less that stay as a single group for 70% of the day.
Additional cleaning and disinfecting of frequently touched surfaces at the end of each day.
Have students wash their hands when coming in from playing outside.
Limit the sharing of belongings between students (pencils, snacks, etc.).
Maintain our stay-at-home policy for anyone (students or teachers) feeling sick or who has a temperature of 99.5 degrees. Students and teachers must be fever free for at least 24 before returning to campus.
Train students in frequent hand hygiene, and how to cover their mouth when coughing or sneezing.
Regularly check bathrooms to ensure soap and towel dispensers are filled. Ensure that there are signs in the bathroom promoting proper hand-washing techniques.
Will SBH be required to follow school mandates given by State and County authorities regarding coronavirus protocols?
The DOE and many independent schools on Oahu have issued school guidelines for the coming school year in response to covid-19. However, SBH is legally not considered a “school”. We are not registered with the State or County as a private school. Rather, we are a “homeschool resource group” that would fall under the more general “public gatherings under 50” category. As such SBH is not mandated to follow the same kind of rules as the DOE or independent schools on-island.
Will SBH be requiring facemasks of students on campus?
No. Unless the State of Hawaii requires all groups of less than 50 to wear facemasks.
We have carefully considered this question, and our answer is based on three important things:
First, “school-aged children between 5 and 14 have a 1 in 200,000 chance of dying of influenza, but a 1 in 2.5 million chance of dying of COVID-19.” The fact is that our keki are much more in danger of the common flu than of the coronavirus. The risk level for our children to gather at SBH without a mask and be hurt is extremely low. Our students’ health and safety is not at any significant risk from covid-19. So while we want to take precautions of rampant community spread among the kapuna on-island, we are not fearful for our children.
Second, it is vitally important for our children to see the faces of their classmates and teachers as they are developing their social intelligence. As our kids are learning to pick up on nuanced social cues, we don’t feel that it is beneficial nor necessary at this time to require facemasks on our students. We are made in the imago dei, the image of God, and to see the faces of each other helps us see the love of God.
Third, if we lived in a coronavirus hotspot our answer would probably be different, but currently the state of Hawaii is #51 in deaths/million and #51 in positives/million. As we carefully weigh the costs and benefits of various social and public policies, we should seek to establish guidelines in our communities that are appropriately extreme to the danger we actually face.
Fourth, to be realistic, even if we required facemasks on our children while at SBH, it would be an area of constant disruption and distraction to the natural flow of interacting with each other. What happens when a student forgets to bring their mask? Or looses in? Or trades it with their friends? Or is always taking if off? We want to avoid making teachers “mask police” rather than putting their energy and enthusiasm into fostering vibrant and healthy classroom communities. Again, while wearing facemasks may be necessary when a community is facing high levels of community spread, we don’t discern that the risks outweigh the costs of doing so at this time.
Will SBH require social distancing among students?
Not unless we are required to by the State of Hawaii by law. Part of the benefits of being a part of a small homeschool community is that we don’t face the same kinds of risks as bigger schools with hundreds or thousands of people in a confined space. We feel that the risks and rewards of having our students able to physically interact is vital to them growing up with a sense of friendship, connection, security, confidence, and community.
How will SBH facilitate lunch and recess times?
We will have students seated for lunches in the Form I room and also in the outside courtyard with plenty of space between tables. Recess will be 20 minutes of outside play time for all students. Permission to stay with a teacher in a classroom may be granted by the recess teacher and agreed ahead of time with the classroom teacher.
How will Holy Communion be administered at SBH?
As you know we celebrate Holy Communion each Tuesday as the core of what we are all about- feasting and communing with our Lord and each other in fellowship through the Holy Spirit. We will following the same protocols as Christ the Foundation Anglican Church to the degree in which we take precautionary measures.
What will happen at SBH if Hawaii gets a second wave sometime in the Fall or Winter?
It depends. If the State of Hawaii restricts all gatherings, including churches, like they did in March, we will have no choice but to also suspend classes. We have learned some important lessons from our distance learning experience that we will employe if we are forced to do that again.
We will maintain a high level of communication with all families
We will have our teachers post the week’s homework each Sunday for parents to direct their children’s home education each week.
We will publish a weekly schedule for short online lessons for the teachers to stay connected to their students and move at a reasonable pace forward with curriculum.
We are committed to avoid “user fatigue” of our students. We will not require our students to be in front of a screen in video meetings for hours a day. Especially with our youngest students, we will avoid requiring more than 45 minutes per week in online meetings. Our older middle school students can expect only a few hours a week at most of online classes.
Parents will be the primarily educators of their children while in lockdowns, however SBH teachers will continue to give guidance, support, and facilitate structure for the parents to follow.
If parents find that they are struggling with an ability to pay monthly program dues because of unemployment or layoffs, they can apply to receive financial assistance.
All that said, we expect that the coronavirus will most likely be new part of life that won’t go away, yet life will need to continue on. “We’ve learned to live with the potential horrors of influenza. In all likelihood, we’ll have to do the same with COVID-19.”
What would happen if someone in the SBH community tests positive for covid-19?
Once the Director is made aware of a positive case, he will immediately send out an email to all the parents notifying them of the event. We will suspend all classes and move to a distance learning mode for at least one week while we assess the extent of community spread that has occured. Once we have assessed the extent of the viral spread after that week, we will require the families of those infected to stay off-campus for 14 days, and the rest of the community will return to campus for on-campus instruction while maintaining the stay-at-home-if-sick policy. Teachers will help provide parents with learning resources if desired to carry on education at home for those students in quarantine.
We are committed to seek our best to balance reasonable safety precautions with facing uncertainty and risk with courage. We realize parents will be coming to us from all sorts of places on the spectrum on these issues, and while we can’t expect to please everyone with everything, we want your feedback and input as we discern a way forward. If you have any further questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to email me at StBenedictHall@gmail.com!
In Christ our Savior,
Deacon Ben Moore