News & Views: July 24, 2020
Important Dates:
August 1: Second tuition installment due
August 11, 7:00 pm: Covid Q&A with Kristin via Zoom
September 10, 7:00 pm: New Parent Orientation via Zoom
September 14: First day of school / First day of phase in for Twos
School News & Announcements
This section will contain school-wide news applicable to each family.
A healthy start to school: One of our guiding principles this year is that CHP is a healthy and safe environment designed to serve healthy children and families. Along those lines, we are asking each family to choose one of the following two options prior to starting school on September 14th:
Quarantine at home for 14 days, OR
Get tested for Covid-19 and submit negative test results to CHP. Tests must be conducted between September 1st and September 13th, and results must be submitted to CHP prior to starting school. For those families who opt to get tested, we ask that you also quarantine from the day of your test to the first day of school.
Questions about this policy will be addressed at our Family Q&A on August 11st. Please see the next bullet point for details.
Please join Kristin for a Family Q&A on Tuesday, August 11th at 7:00 pm via Zoom: We will continue to be in touch via email, and we will continue to update our plan for opening, but this evening provides an opportunity for live Q&A about starting school and our new policies and procedures. RSVP here. Zoom link here.
Items necessary for school: We will be sharing information about our health and safety policies and procedures throughout the summer to ensure that every family is ready and prepared for the start of school. Here, we provide information about what materials your child will need for school this year:
Lunch and/or snack: ALL food eaten at school must be brought from home, including lunch and a snack for full day students and a snack for half day students. You may pack your child’s snack or lunch in a disposable brown paper bag OR a reusable lunchbox that you clean & disinfect nightly.
School shoes: We will ask all children to change their shoes upon arrival at school. “Outside shoes” will be stored in our lobby. “Inside shoes” will be worn in the classroom. Please consider purchasing laceless inside shoes (slip-ons or velcro) for ease of use. Flip-flops will not be permitted. As always, we ask that children wear shoes that allow and encourage active play.
A bit more time, and a home thermometer: Arrival at school will involve social distancing and an enhanced health screening. There will be a simple checklist you complete at home (including temperature check) as well as a brief screening upon arrival at school (also including a temperature check). We will also be using a schedule of staggered arrivals to reduce wait times. We have put many steps in place to ensure this is a smooth process. However, we ask that you budget a bit of time for this, particularly during the first month of school.
A mask: At this time, children over age 2 are required to wear masks when they go outside. This includes traveling to and from school as well as trips outside with school. Please ensure that your child has an adequate supply of masks for daily wear once school begins.
No items from home: Toys, blankets, and stuffed animals from home will not be allowed in school. For children staying for full days, we will allow a lovey from home that will be kept at school, and CHP will provide a blanket and cot sheet for each child. All rest time items will be laundered daily.
Parent jobs and Duty parenting: These important parts of our cooperative will continue this year, but may look a bit different than they have in the past.
Parent jobs will be assigned in August via email, based on the preferences you submitted in your registration paperwork. These jobs support the operations of our school and our school community, help CHP keep tuition costs low, and can be a great way to meet other parents and families. Each member of our volunteer parent Board of Directors chairs a parent job committee and will be your guide for this work. For parents who chose the buy-out option, you will not be assigned a parent job.
Duty parenting involves helping out in our classroom, and this program will be on hold until at least January, pending public health advisories. We are working to develop other ways in which to involve parents in daily classroom activities, so please stay tuned for more information.
We are pleased to publish our school calendar. We are planning for a wonderful year of in-person learning. We are also anticipating periodic closures due to various public health scenarios. As we work to finalize our policies around these issues, please be aware that our calendar is subject to change.
Notes From Our Classroom Teachers
This section includes weekly updates from our classroom teachers and arts specialists.
Community Engagement
This section contains information about our school community, including information from our volunteer parent Board of Directors.
Submit a photo! Typically we ask families to submit a photo of their child from the summer that we use in the classroom at the beginning of the year. This year, we invite families to participate in our Mask on / Mask off project by submitting two photos of their child: one wearing a mask and one without a mask. These photos should be candid and as playful as you want. Photos can be uploaded to this folder or submitted via email to Kristin@cobblehillplayschool.com.
Please enjoy this video about wearing masks, made by CHP teacher Lizzie Hershon, and designed for parents to watch together with their young children.
Events Around Town
This section contains information about events of interest in the neighborhood, relevant news articles, and information about public and private schools in our area.
We love sharing articles we think might be of interest. Here is the recent series of articles on the benefits of play from the NY Times.
Duty Parents
This section will list our duty parents for the upcoming week when we are able to safely reinstitute this program.