First grade is quarantined, a class in third grade is quarantined, two positive cases in the upper school. All these events occurred within just weeks of one another and while students were unsure of what the procedure was, the school sprung into action to successfully prevent any community spread of COVID-19.

In the Lower School, vaccinations aren’t available, leading to things looking similar to last year. Despite things looking similar, there have been a few notable changes  such as lower school students being able to attend MXs about once every six weeks.

“We decided that there are a lot of students who could benefit from being in the auditorium,” Kimeri Swanson-Beck, Head of the Lower School, said. “Many students have never been in the auditorium, never learned auditorium etiquette, and never seen an MX. We decided that it was worth the small health risk to have students in the auditorium every so often.”

Due to health risks, many policies have to remain in place. One of those policies is the need to mask outdoors. Despite low transmission outdoors, administrators decided that having masks would allow for there not to be a need for contact tracing outside, and that consistency between indoor and outdoor masking can help avoid confusion.

“We decided it was best to keep masks outdoors for unvaccinated students,” Vahn Phayprasert, Head of Intermediate and Middle Schools, said, “in order to try and stop wires from being crossed. It’s a lot harder to explain to younger students that they have to wear a mask indoors but not outdoors than it is to explain that to older students.”

Middle School is in a unique situation because there is a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated students. This has meant different rules depending on the grade, such as the rules for outdoor masking and how lunch works. This also plays a role in how Middle School clubs and organizations work. 

“In years past,” Phayprasert said, “Middle School has used U-Lunch for club and affinity group meetings, however, this year we have had to eliminate these lunch meetings and focus more on before and after school meetings.”

Upper School has the advantage of all students being eligible for the vaccine. For this reason, the upper school has been able to operate without many of the restrictions in place last year.

“Because of the Upper School’s vaccination levels,” Chris Arnold, Head of the Upper School , said, “we have been able to allow Upper Schoolers off campus during free periods, allow teachers to move around seats in their classrooms, and allow students to eat in common areas.”

Because of the varying levels of vaccination, quarantine measures are different throughout grades. For all unvaccinated students, saliva screening is performed, and if a case comes up positive, another test will be performed on all unvaccinated contacts. If students are vaccinated, they aren’t required to test unless they are symptomatic. Unvaccinated close contacts are required to quarantine; however, they are able to test out of quarantine. 

“Ultimately,” Phayprasert said, “we just follow what the CDC and IDPH guidance is for schools, as well as what our medical subcommittee recommends.”