Cranbrook’s Return to Campus Plan 2020-2021: Care and Common Purpose
A Message from Director of Schools Aimeclaire Roche
Dear Cranbrook Community Members,
Throughout the spring and early summer, colleagues throughout Cranbrook School and Cranbrook Educational Community have been hard at work planning for the coming school year. All efforts have been centered on how we can best support our teachers and students during these extraordinary times.Dear Cranbrook Community Members,
Our foremost goal at this time is to ensure the health and well-being of our Schools community as we begin the 2020-2021 school year. We each have an essential role to play in keeping every member of the Cranbrook Schools community well and healthy, and in recognizing that this is our common and most important purpose in the year to come.
Next, know that in planning for the 2020-2021school year, we aim to minimize the impact of COVID-related modifications on Cranbrook’s academic and cocurricular programs and to preserve the richness of the Cranbrook educational experience at all levels. The COVID-related adjustments we will make this coming year allow us to meet that goal, and simultaneously to mitigate health and safety risks of the COVID-19 virus.
Our approach:
These four measures, when taken together, form a strategy for reducing the risk of COVID-19 spread among teachers and students, and for increasing the likelihood that we – as a large school community – will sustain regular and vibrant in-person instruction on campus through the 2020-2021 school year.
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Next, know that in planning for the 2020-2021school year, we aim to minimize the impact of COVID-related modifications on Cranbrook’s academic and cocurricular programs and to preserve the richness of the Cranbrook educational experience at all levels. The COVID-related adjustments we will make this coming year allow us to meet that goal, and simultaneously to mitigate health and safety risks of the COVID-19 virus.
Our approach:
- Place emphasis on effective health and hygiene practices including proactive screening and the use of facial coverings, hand hygiene, and cleaning/disinfection. These are individual routines as well as community habits — tangible ways in which we consciously demonstrate care for our own health and for one another.
- Allow for physical distance in classrooms and school facilities by reducing the density of classes and gatherings. Such distance in no way dictates how loving and emotionally invested we can be; as we learned palpably this past spring, Cranbrook is community — strong and close and spirited — no matter where you are.
- Create cohorts or groups of students who share the day’s activities and have limited physical contact with students in another cohort or group. Grouping into cohorts reduces the possible spread of illness and allows for expedient contract-tracing, should that be necessary.
- Offer online access to daily in-person instruction – AccessCK– for students who are absent from school for short or extended periods of time. This access is an important part of supporting all students who cannot be at school because of illness or quarantine as they stay on track with their studies and remain a vital part of our community.
These four measures, when taken together, form a strategy for reducing the risk of COVID-19 spread among teachers and students, and for increasing the likelihood that we – as a large school community – will sustain regular and vibrant in-person instruction on campus through the 2020-2021 school year.
The fifth facet of Cranbrook’s approach is a prudent contingency plan, should we experience a local resurgence of COVID-19 and find that a particular division or the entire Schools facility must close for a period of time. In that case, we will facilitate a seamless transition to schools-wide or division-wide global distance learning – CK Online 2.0.
Each element of our strategy works in concert with the others; it is a comprehensive approach that relies upon the complete dedication and caring support of every one in our community: parents and students, teachers and staff, administration and all of our colleagues in the wider Cranbrook Educational Community.
Just as the risks and responses related to COVID-19 continue to develop, our Return to Campus Plan is also an evolving document that will require regular review and adjustment by the Schools, at its discretion, in order to provide safe, high quality learning models during the current pandemic. We will regularly update this plan in light of emergent research, guidance from health care authorities, and the status or phase of the pandemic itself. Today’s publication – July 10, 2020 – is a first, important iteration with as much information as we have today about the coming school year. Thank you for reading and digesting all chapters of this communication; more will follow.
For all the uncertainty amid this situation, one thing is sure as we look to 2020-2021: Cranbrook students and teachers are thrilled to return to campus in September and to remain there all year long. Our collective care for each other and purposeful commitment to each other’s health and well-being are how we ensure that they can.
Gratefully,
Aimeclaire Roche, Director of Schools
Contact Us
PO Box 801
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303
(248) 645-3000
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303
(248) 645-3000
