Dear Northwood Families:
As we approach the tenth week of this most unusual school year, I am inspired every day by the hope, compassion, and resilience on display by the Northwood community during this chapter in our school’s history. Since we first began planning to re-open Northwood School for the 2020-21 school year, we have had four goals:
- To operate the school in a manner that promotes the health and safety of our students, our employees, and their families.
- To provide an in-person academic experience that fosters the intellectual growth of our students.
- To offer a full complement of athletic and co-curricular activities – even though the usual competition and performance schedules were uncertain.
- To sustain an insular campus and boarding community for students to build lifelong friendships and have fun.
I am proud of how well we have met all four of those goals, and we remain committed to them as the trimester comes to a close and we look ahead to the coming break and the rest of the school year. We will continue to rely on science and public health recommendations to make decisions that best allow us to meet these goals. I write to share with you our plans for the remainder of the current academic term, the upcoming break, and our return to school in January.
The Rest of First Trimester With just over three weeks remaining in the trimester, students are now allowed to leave campus to visit the Village of Lake Placid and our living room is abuzz with student activity, both of which were not permitted at the start of the year. For the most part, students have acted responsibly to “Protect the Pack,” and the more than 1,000 negative test results demonstrate that our plan is working. Even so, many states are seeing record highs in daily virus transmission, so we must always remain vigilant. For the rest of the trimester, our student-athletes will continue to train here in Lake Placid and will leave campus to compete and/or train as permitted by the patchwork of federal, state and local regulatory agencies that oversee such matters.
Winter Break
During the break, which begins on November 20, 2020 and concludes on January 4, 2021, all students will have required academic assignments. Students taking Advanced Placement courses should expect ongoing work in those classes. The Dean of Academics will be sharing more specific information on work due over the break in the coming weeks. We can’t predict what choices we’ll have for our student-athletes when we go on break, but we expect our hockey players and ski racers will have options to train or compete during the extended break.
All students must complete a Vacation Travel Form indicating how they plan to depart from and return to school; that form will be sent to families later this week. Northwood will provide charter bus service for a fee to the Albany Airport and to Penn Station in New York City. The charter bus departs Northwood at 7:00 am on Friday, November 20 and is expected to arrive at Albany Airport at 10:00 am and at Penn Station at 2:00 pm. Arrival times are not guaranteed and depend on weather and traffic conditions. Families should plan connecting transportation accordingly.
The school will also offer a COVID Test Clinic on Tuesday, November 17 that will return results on Thursday, November 19 for any student who may desire a recent negative test before the start of break. There is a fee for this test and students will sign up when they complete their Vacation Travel Form beginning later this week. If the timing of that test does not work, then we recommend students purchase an at-home test kit from Vault Health.
Campus will remain open during the break for a fee for students who may face travel restrictions that make going home or returning to school difficult or even impossible. We want all students to finish the school year on campus, and if remaining in Lake Placid is the only way to make that possible for our students then we welcome them to stay. We know that staying on a nearly empty campus for 45 days over the holiday season during a pandemic isn’t the most appealing option for our students, and we will support those who wish to instead stay at the homes of their Northwood friends for the duration of the break. We encourage all Northwood families, especially those in the North Country region, to get in touch with the school if they can host a student during the break.
Returning for Second Trimester
Regarding the second trimester, classes will begin on Tuesday, January 5, 2021 and continue for ten weeks, concluding on Friday, March 12. We are asking all boarding students, even those coming from within New York state or the few states without quarantine requirements, to arrive on Monday, January 4 with a recent negative test and quarantine for two weeks because a uniform 14-day quarantine is the safest way to start the term. As we did in August, we will permit international students to arrive several days early, if doing so is the only practical way to return on time.
Northwood will again onboard students with a program of “assurance testing" combined with quarantine. Assurance testing is frequent testing of asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic individuals to quickly identify and isolate a single case of COVID-19 before there is spread, which can lead to an outbreak and the cessation of in-person programming. Students will also quarantine for 14 days after the initial test to comply with New York State and CDC quarantine requirements for travelers and to ensure that any positive cases found during onboarding do not result in community spread. Our schedule of assurance testing is January 4, 11 and 18. Following the quarantine, we expect to begin in-person classes and athletic training and co-curricular activities.
Of course, our plans for January and beyond depend on the status of the virus, open borders, and government allowances for in-person instruction. If individual students cannot return to campus or if the school is unable to offer on-campus programming and in-person instruction due to government restrictions, we are prepared to provide remote instruction as needed. We may even need to delay boarding students’ return to campus. In these uncertain and rapidly changing times, we appreciate your flexibility and understanding.
Because it’s not practical to schedule school breaks when students who go home are required to quarantine for two weeks and then must quarantine again when they return to school, we expect to forgo our traditional spring break and start the third trimester on Monday, March 15 and conclude the school year with commencement on Saturday, May 22. We will schedule several short respites between January 5 and commencement during which students will get a break from classes and have numerous options for activities both on- and off-campus.
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I hope this message provides you with the details you need to plan for the coming break and the return to school in the new year. In the coming days, we will share the Vacation Travel Form, which all students must complete before departing campus for the break.
Thank you for your commitment to our plan and for your support and encouragement.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Maher
Head of School