Editor's note: On Aug. 12, after this article went to press, Gov. Ralph Northam announced a Public Health Emergency Order requiring universal masking in all indoor settings in Virginia’s K-12 schools. The order reinforces current state law, which requires that Virginia schools adhere to mitigation strategies outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As of July 28, CDC guidelines include universal masking for all students, teachers and staff.
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School leaders spoke about their plans for the 2021-22 school year with precariousness, as well as ambiguity because of the uncertainty of COVID-19 and changing health guidelines.
When students at St. Michael’s Episcopal School return to the classroom in September, it may feel quite different from last year. Wearing masks is a possibility, but there will be no more desk shields. Speaking in mid-June, St. Michael’s head of school says they fully intend to return to normal classroom density.
“For next year, our plan right now is to resume normal operations for this school, with normal-size groups, in their regularly scheduled classrooms, moving around campus in a normal fashion,” says Bob Gregg, director of St. Michael’s Episcopal School.
Almost 400 students in pre-K through eighth grade attend St. Michael’s, located in Bon Air on a 70-acre campus that includes a lake.
During the 2020-21 academic year, St. Michael’s staff and students went through a variety of setups, including learning virtually. When on campus, students and staff wore masks, used Plexiglas dividers in certain situations, and ate outside in tents to comply with COVID-19 physical distancing requirements. Those moves came in response to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Virginia Department of Health (VDOH) and the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE).
As the school year ended, St. Michael’s put out an informative document for its families, addressing plans for the following year, but with coronavirus case numbers dropping and private school leaders anticipating new guidelines to come in late July, not all rules were finalized.
“One of the things we’ve learned is how much we enjoy being together for meals, chapel or performances, and how much we have missed that over the course of this year,” Gregg says. “We’ve missed having parents on campus on a regular basis for any number of functions. So we’re eager to get back to hosting those events as well.”
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The Steward School’s girls' basketball team practiced together last fall when competition against other schools wasn’t possible. (Photo courtesy The Steward School)
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Junior-kindergarten students dig in to science education outdoors at The Steward School. (Photo courtesy The Steward School)
What set private schools around the Richmond area apart from their public-school counterparts last year was consistent in-person instruction.
Like St. Michael’s, Cristo Rey Richmond High School students and staff met in person during the 2020-21 school year. The Catholic college-preparatory high school with a work-study component had to adhere to social distancing requirements and the mask mandate during operations at its Sheppard Street campus in the Fan with a number of students learning remotely.
Peter McCourt, Cristo Rey’s president, says the school also adhered to cleaning recommendations from the CDC and the VDOH to sanitize commonly used surfaces to help prevent the spread of infection.
“We also put into place other strategies, such as single-direction staircases and plastic barriers in the cafeteria, so students could remove their masks and enjoy their lunch and conversation with one another at the lunch tables, and appropriate ventilation controls inside the school building as well as in our school buses,” McCourt says. “We’re hoping that the pandemic is behind us and we can return to experiencing a full normal school year.”
Students at Cristo Rey Richmond High School met in person last year as their school used social-distancing strategies. (Photo courtesy Cristo Rey Richmond High School)
Protocol Planning
An emailed statement from Katherine Oliver, Collegiate School’s director of strategic communications, captured the sense of clear direction private school leaders in the area expressed this summer.
“We are continually watching the evolving recommendations from [Gov. Ralph Northam] and the Virginia Department of Health, and we will plan accordingly as the school year approaches,” Oliver says. “We are confident that just as we were able to navigate this past school year with students learning on campus, we will be able to do so for the coming year.”
Dan Frank, head of The Steward School, says he imagines that social distancing may come to an end, as it has outside of schools. A K-12 private college preparatory school, Steward is located in western Henrico County.
As the 2021 school year came to an end, Frank imagined that the summer would include a large amount of planning to understand guidelines and needs for the upcoming academic year.
“We’ll be thinking about what does it mean if we have to social distance at 3 feet?” Frank says. “What does it mean if we have no social distancing? What does it mean if ages 4 through 11 are still required to wear masks and the others are not?”
Eighth graders at St. Michael’s Episcopal School conducted water testing experiments on campus. (Photo courtesy St. Michael’s Episcopal School)
Frank and his team will consider how they are going to space furniture as they also evaluate whether or not they will once again use cafeterias, their theater and social gathering spaces as classrooms or for their original purposes. Frank is also deliberately considering how The Steward School will communicate plans to current and prospective families.
“So all that [planning] will continue as it did last summer, but our muscles are better fit,” Frank says.
One change St. Michael’s instituted is an outdoor education class for every grade.
“Our faculty have bent over backwards to support the children and the families here at St. Michael’s,” Gregg says. “And it’s truly remarkable what they have done day in and day out to meet the in-person and virtual needs of these families. Faculty were really writing the playbook in terms of how to do remote and in-person teaching, and sometimes simultaneously, because there was not a model.”
Private schools such as Collegiate and Steward are strongly encouraging vaccination of faculty, staff and students 12 and older.
“We are not yet requiring vaccines,” Frank says, speaking in June. “We are encouraging them, and we are asking families to self-report whether or not they have had their children vaccinated. As the state establishes its patterns and its guidelines, we will follow those.”
“We shouldn’t expect to go from 0 to 60 in terms of going from pandemic to normality.” —Dan Frank, head of The Steward School
Steward will continue to offer an asynchronous learning option next year for students who have medical needs. Collegiate’s Oliver says the school is “offering continuity of learning for those who are absent related to COVID-19. Each situation will be handled individually.”
McCourt and Gregg say that Cristo Rey and St. Michael’s will not continue an online or virtual learning option in 2021.
“We will continue to use Zoom as a way to address absences if students are out of school for an extended period of time due to illness,” McCourt says. “We’ll also continue looking at virtual learning for closures of school.”
An Uncertain Future
Frank says coming out of the pandemic will be challenging.
“We shouldn’t expect to go from zero to 60 in terms of going from pandemic to normality,” he says. “I’ve talked to my families about a period with adjustments.”
Frank’s priority for the coming year is to rebuild a sense of community, especially for new students. With a roster of families coming from 20 different zip codes Steward will offer various ways for families to connect with the school.
But Frank says some aspects from the 2020-21 school year will remain, including livestreaming some events, retaining outdoor spaces and possibly keeping the event tents.
The school will provide enhanced health and wellness services again next year, including a second school nurse and a counselor to help the school lean in to socioemotional needs. Hygiene items and practices will also remain.
Speaking in mid-July, when the CDC put out word that vaccinated students and teachers do not need to wear masks in school buildings, St. Michael’s director of communications Andrea Amore says that the directive put schools between a rock and a hard place.
“Schools do not want to have to track [or] police who can and cannot wear masks in school,” says Amore. She worries children may be called out for wearing masks and is concerned about COVID-19 variants. “I think RVA schools are really hoping the governor gives very clear direction on how schools should proceed with regards to masks, given that students below age 12 do not yet have an option to be vaccinated.”
