As we look ahead to more daylight, better weather and the (hopefully) final stages of our pandemic restrictions, we're beginning to take some careful steps towards restoring normal school life. The first of those steps will be to expand the rotations of those Middle and Upper Schoolers with blended in-person and remote schedules. Beginning on April 19: 

• Seventh and eighth grade rotations will expand to four days per week (7th Grade: Mon-Thu; 8th Grade: Tues - Fri); and
   
• Upper School cohorts will alternate in-person from Thursday through Wednesday.

We are able to prudently expand these rotations by increasing the number of classroom spaces in use at 81st St., not by increasing the density of students within those classroom spaces. Waiting an extra week to introduce this change will put us two full weeks out from the end of spring break — long enough for any potential effects of travel during break to show up in our regular screenings

Another step in our return to normalcy is to underscore the importance of regular attendance. We have worked hard to offer flexibility to families to cope with evolving situations, and that has included accommodating students who need to be fully remote or to attend on unconventional schedules. We will continue to support remote learners.

At the same time, however, it is extremely challenging for our teachers — across all divisions — to fully serve our students if the attendance picture shifts daily and unpredictably. Therefore, unless your child needs to be absent for health or quarantine reasons, or is fully remote, or is in-person with a pre-approved schedule modification, we are expecting them to come to school. Students who show up on Zoom rather than in person without a valid reason will be marked absent.

Finally, we've been thrilled to see some students who had been remote for most of the year rejoin us in person this week. Should your child be considering a shift back to in-person learning, please remember that we ask you to give us plenty of advance notice so that we can ensure there is space available in our classrooms.

It was wonderful to see our students back on campus yesterday, and as the pace of vaccinations continues to quicken, I'm filled with hope. What a difference a year makes!