COVID-19 Update 7/31/2020

Dear Members of The Benjamin School Community,

I hope this message finds you and your loved ones in good health. Guided by our 12 Benjamin Values, our goal during this crisis has been the preservation of the health and safety of our students, faculty, staff, and community.

As independent school leaders and a community of educators, we know that children learn best when attending school in an in-person environment, and our ultimate mission remains to serve our Benjamin family with an on-campus experience.

To that end, we are carefully planning to safely re-open our campuses to children in a manner that will provide the greatest educational benefit with the least amount of risk. Given the rapidly evolving situation caused by the pandemic, including continued high numbers of cases in our state and county, we are using extreme caution as we look to get the new school year off to a safe and successful beginning. With guidance from our medical directors, Division Heads, and faculty, our school will reopen its campuses to students in stages as follows:

All Middle and Upper School students will begin the school year on August 18 in the Remote Learning Program.
On August 18, all Lower School students who have opted for the On-Campus Program will begin in person. However, please understand that should levels in our community not abate, we will look to delay the start of the Lower School academic year until August 31. Students in this division benefit the most from in-person learning. Lower School students enrolled in the Remote Learning Program will begin the school year online following the same schedule as on-campus students. Any potential delay to the Lower School academic year will be announced by August 14, 2020.

The Division Heads will be in touch early next week with more details about each division, and an updated Re-Entry Plan will be made available to you next week.

Our optimistic hope is that all students will join us back on campus as soon as possible. In the meantime, a digital version of the Family Acknowledgement Form will be posted to your BucLinks account at 4:00 p.m. This form requires each family’s signature. Please log into BucLinks by August 10 to complete this form.

We know for many this is not the news or correspondence you wanted to receive, but this decision will serve as a protective benefit to our entire community and allow us to more rapidly transition to a fully on-campus opening.

For our collective success in this endeavor, we must rely on each other to adhere to the best practices put forth by the CDC. This is a community responsibility, and our successful opening of school depends on each family joining this effort.

I close this email to you as we prepare for the first tropical storm/hurricane of the season, and I wish the Benjamin community a safe and healthy weekend. Thank you for your continued support as we navigate these challenges.

In community,

David C. Faus
Head of School

COVID-19 Update 7/31/2020

Main Address & Lower/Middle School

Upper School