Dear Friends,

I hope this letter finds you all well. As a school community, we have much to be grateful for at this time of year! And yet the pandemic continues to pose enormous challenges. Incidence and positivity rates are skyrocketing across the country and rising in this area. In response, other schools are making a variety of decisions about instructional modes, and different counties in southeast Pennsylvania are issuing a variety of recommendations. We at Westtown continue to work overtime to meet the needs of diverse students and their families, absorb evolving (and often contradictory) guidance from public health officials, and balance a number of competing factors in our decision-making. At this juncture:

We hope and expect that Westtown will continue to operate on campus. However, because of rapidly evolving circumstances and changing guidance, all should prepare for the possibility of moving to Westtown Distance Learning (WDL).

We absolutely love being on campus with your children, and are not planning to shift to WDL. A realistic look at our situation tells us that we need to recognize that possibility. If we need to move into distance learning after Thanksgiving break, we will endeavor to inform Upper School families by November 20 and Lower and Middle School families by November 25, but families should remain alert to updates during the break, and students should take home any materials they will need for WDL when they leave, just in case.

The rest of this letter contains important information about:

What we are seeing and hearing from public health experts;
The choice your family must make to counter the surge and help us keep school open;
Increased restrictions on campus this winter;
What to expect in the spring semester: our calendar, testing, meal options, boarding options, and campus life.

From the experts:

On-campus learning is threatened by social activities outside of school.

We have been told that schools will be required to close if the current surge continues. Our Chester County Health Department (CCHD) is currently recommending no change in instructional mode, but schools in adjacent counties have already been advised or required to close because of the surge. According to the CCHD, the majority of cases in school settings are not due to "linked transmission" — that is, they are not spreading among students and teachers within schools. Rather, cases "are coming from outside activities" such as parties, sleepovers, gatherings outside the family, and indoor dining.

Even if we are not required by law to close, cases brought into our school, and resulting quarantines, may leave us with no realistic alternative. The more cases of COVID brought into our school from outside activities, the more people will need to quarantine. Other schools have seen their student population and employee population reduced by quarantines to such a point that they have no realistic option other than to go online. That hasn't happened at Westtown yet, but it is a distinct (and growing) possibility.

In short, friends, cases coming into our community from outside activities are a major concern.

The good news is that except for those outside cases, we are very pleased with our Reopening Plan. We have seen no evidence of linked transmission at Westtown. The CCHD has seen some linked transmission within other school communities, but generally only "when the prevention measures are not being followed." To be sure, it is difficult to keep our young Westonians six feet apart at all times, as we acknowledged months ago in our first Interim Reopening Plan. But we are seeing widespread compliance with our mask requirement and continue to make creative use of indoor and outdoor spaces to encourage physical distancing. In addition, we have been able to keep quarantines to a minimum — so far. Three cases have come into our school since students returned to campus. It is always distressing when any of our community members are taken ill, and disappointing to have to ask any students to quarantine. But required quarantines in each case have been in the single digits, thanks to our bluetooth Mooselinks devices, whereas other schools have had to send home entire homerooms, grades, or teams following a single case, due to the difficulty of manual contact tracing.

Remember, even with our Mooselinks system and other aspects of our Reopening Plan, a significant number of cases and quarantines will put our school online.

Our ability to continue on-campus learning depends on each individual.

Your family's choices matter.

There are many things that we cannot control about this pandemic, but some we can. To counter this surge and protect on-campus learning, we need all families to make a choice this winter:

If you are unwilling to forgo parties, sleepovers, gatherings outside the family, indoor dining and the like, your child should learn remotely for the foreseeable future.

If you want your child to learn on campus, you must prioritize school over everything else, and make conservative decisions about your activities. You must refrain from activities like those described above. Westtown relies on the honor system with regard to families' outside activities, so it is deeply dismaying to all of us when we learn indirectly about students who are a part of our on-campus program who are nevertheless attending parties, hosting sleepovers, participating in sports activities we didn't know about, or being casual about masks and physical distancing at any time. Decisions of this nature run counter to the spirit of community we prize and expect at Westtown. If such activities have been part of your experience, our community needs you to please put an end to them now — or choose our remote learning option.

Our positive experiences thus far indicate that the majority of our community has been making responsible decisions. We are very grateful. Thank you, everyone, for doing your part.

This winter, we are increasing restrictions on campus

to protect on-campus learning.

In the spirit of controlling what can be controlled, we are increasing our restrictions on campus activities for the next few weeks. Over the course of the fall, we allowed some congregate activities to proceed on campus, and some coming and going on dorm. The surge has necessitated a different approach. Starting today until winter break begins on December 11:

Boarding students will no longer be permitted to leave campus except for urgent purposes such as doctor appointments.
All meals and snacks will be taken outdoors (in one of our heated tents) or in students' own dorm rooms, except in the most extreme weather.
Meeting for Worship in Upper School (as in Middle) will be online. Lower School Meeting for Worship will continue to occur by cohort only.
Other than academic and co-curricular commitments, congregate activities will be proceed only according to strict criteria and limited to outdoor venues.
Some weekend activities may take place indoors, but attendance will be limited to boarding students.

What to expect in the spring semester:

Our calendar, testing, meal options, boarding options, and campus life.

The spring semester calendar is now available here. The semester will begin on January 11 as planned, and it will proceed much the same as in other years. Before finalizing this calendar, we gave careful thought to various options. After much conversation, we reaffirmed that resuming school as planned on January 11 provides needed instructional time; a two-week spring break will be a necessity; and shifting the date of Commencement is not appropriate for our seniors or other members of the community.

All community members will be required to take a COVID test before returning to campus. We anticipate offering on-campus testing during the week of January 4, and will confirm the details in December. As in the fall, boarding students who plan to travel to campus in a single-family car may submit proof of a negative COVID test taken at home; alternately, if they are traveling to campus by public transportation, they may take a test on campus and will be quarantined in their dorm room until the results come back.

Spring meal options will be the same as those available in the fall semester. Please see page 28 of our Reopening Plan. We will assume that your Upper or Middle School child will continue with the option you selected for the fall. If you wish to make a change, please email Tracy DiGinto at tracy.diginto@westtown.edu by Monday, November 30.

Boarding will be available to students by permission of the Upper School Principal. We will have four move-in dates in the spring semester: January 10, January 18, February 28, and April 5. On January 10, we will welcome back to campus all boarders who were living on dorm in the fall semester. New boarders in the spring spring semester will be invited to seek permission to move in on one of the other three dates; Upper School students should look for a survey about their preferences. Through at least March, boarders should again expect to live in single rooms. We will therefore have limited capacity for boarders during the beginning of the spring semester. The Upper School team will use the same criteria as applied in the fall, and will endeavor to accommodate as many students on dorm as possible. Those invited to come on dorm will receive additional information from T. Whitney. By April, we hope to see conditions that will allow us to expand boarding to double rooms.

All students should expect a restricted campus experience at the start of the spring semester, including the limitations described above: meals will be taken outside, Meeting for Worship will occur online, and boarders will remain on campus, etc. When the pandemic indicators in our area abate, we will ease these restrictions — for example, reintroducing limited congregate activities on campus and permitting boarders to visit with family on weekends. Let's hope for an improvement in the pandemic, and look forward to welcoming the warmer weather with more options!

We are thankful for our students, their families, and our employee community!

Friends, please join me in thanking our excellent faculty and staff for their unrelenting determination and perseverance throughout the pandemic. In turn, I am confident that I speak for all of our teachers and staff members in saying that we are tremendously grateful to your children for their resilience, tenacity, and spirit. Parents, thank you for your partnering with us around these difficult decisions and tough restrictions. Be well and take care of yourselves and each other!

Yours,