Dear Parents,
Greetings! It is hard to believe that we are now half-way through the third quarter of the 2020-2021 school year! It has been one year since we left campus and began our process of teaching through distance learning. Many things have changed in our country due to the pandemic, and many of the struggles remain the same.
As I write this message one of our teachers is in the hospital, struggling in her fight against a COVID infection. We must continue to use wisdom in how we behave and manage our personal interactions with our fellow human beings. We have another teacher that also recently contracted the virus and is in the later stages of a full recovery. Please continue to pray often for our staff, students and the whole ACA family.
I am sure you all know that the Presidential decree release 22 Feb 2021 now gives permission for students and teachers to return to campus together on a limited, “hybrid”, basis. We are working through all of the requirements of the protocols to make our plan for reopening. ACA is a very unique school in comparison to size and the layout of our campus, so I ask you to be patient as we develop our processes.
We want to ensure the safety of all persons and to be good stewards of our resources and we have to balance that with our desire to provide the best educational situation for our students. We are still functioning with many families that are struggling to pay tuition (over Gs. 950.000.000 late tuition) and we have to plan the use of our resources very carefully.
The current MEC protocols limit to 4-5 hours per day on campus, two to three days per week. There can also be no more than 15 students per classroom group, with the preferred size being 10 per group. All families have to have the option of attending on-campus or the option of having their students continue with distance learning. Thus, our system must accommodate both styles of delivering the educational teaching without increasing our staff size and without placing a double workload on ACA teachers.
The current idea is to continue to follow our same schedule and have students attend class M-W-F one week for those classes and then Tu and Th the next week for those classes. The school would possibly begin at 8:00 and end at 12:30 with students staying in one classroom and teachers rotating to minimize contamination. Students continuing online will watch the video of the teacher teaching in class and all assignments will continue through Google classroom.
This is NOT THE FINAL PLAN, just our first approach.
The entrance and exit times for all division levels will be different due to the need to minimize traffic at entrance and exit. Masks must be worn by all persons at all times. Hands must be washed and temperatures will be checked upon entrance and then hands will be sprayed with alcohol or alcohol gel will be given as persons pass into the entrance. Parents will not be allowed on campus, except to the main Admin office.
Please pray for us as we continue to learn the MEC rules and to make our plans. As a Christian school we want to follow the protocols and share a good testimony of doing everything correctly. If you have any additional information or if you would like to make a donation to help provide washing stations or supply masks and face shields for our staff please bring them to the school or transfer funds indicating this is your desire. Thank you for your consideration and prayers!
Blessings,
Mr. Retzer
