Over the past two weeks, Jeff and members of our admin team and trustees hosted a series of five Zoom calls with parents to discuss scenarios and options for a return to campus in the fall and any other questions that arose. These are the recurring questions, answers, and overarching themes that surfaced during these calls.

If you or your family have any additional questions or specific concerns you’d like to discuss, please contact a member of the administration. A list of contact information is located at the end of this document.

What can we offer this summer to support parents and families? Can we get kids on campus?

For now we are not able to have any major programming on campus. But we are devising a nice menu of online recreational and academic offerings, along with compendia of resources for families. Some of these resources will be teacher-generated pieces from this spring, including some arts electives videos that are very good, and some will be offered via PowerSchool at no cost.

Burgundy Farm Summer Day Camp will offer a new virtual camp: Summer BOP! (Burgundy Online Program). Summer BOP! will offer families a robust selection of online enrichment camps, covering topics like STEM, art, drama, as well as academic classes. Longtime summer partners Engineering for Kids, Boolean Girls, MathTree, and Alexandria Children’s Theatre will host online enrichment camps and members of Burgundy’s faculty will offer academic classes for students and campers covering math and creative writing. Families will be able to register for morning and afternoon camps on a weekly basis and will be invited to join community events offered each week that are designed to create camp community and fun and bring us together while we are apart.

Are we planning to be on campus in the fall, and how?

Yes, we are planning to be on campus in the fall and are prepared to advocate for our ability to return to campus even if public schools are unable to have in-school learning. Admin and staff have walked the campus and buildings, mapping out learning spaces with distancing needs in mind. Under most foreseeable circumstances, we feel it’s very likely we can leverage our assets and resources in order to return to campus safely. To do this, we have created a task force that will weigh all appropriate data, regulations, and recommendations and will submit a plan of return. This plan will include steps to support students who may not be able to return to school as we understand that the needs of our community members are unique. We will communicate as decisions are made across the summer.

Will school start earlier (in August)?

We will start slightly earlier, with emphasis on orientation and reorientation prior to Labor Day. Our first day back to school will be Tuesday, September 8. We understand that some parents are interested in Burgundy starting the 2020-21 school year even earlier to help transition students. In weighing our decision, we also had to consider the need for thorough planning for multiple possible scenarios and necessary professional development and curriculum work as well as the most obvious fact that we do not know when we’ll be able to open campus for programming. A portion of the training and preparation we will engage in over the summer will be dedicated to learning how to best transition students (especially new students) to the new school year under these unusual circumstances, as well as taking care to help returning students re-socialize.

How can Burgundy support the emotional wellbeing of our community?

The emotional wellbeing of our community is a major priority. In our Lower and Middle School community meetings, we have emphasized mindfulness practices and techniques. In the Lower School, we even spoke of mindfulness as a “super power” that we all have to help us manage stress. School counselor Pat Harden has included a robust list of resources for parents in our “Family Resources” classroom in PowerSchool Learning. We recognize, however, that the need may be greater as we move forward, and we are considering what additional resources of support we can provide or facilitate, including helping parents be resources to one another but also reminding parents of resources for more serious or persistent concerns. 

How will remote learning be different or improved if we need it next year? What have we learned from this emergency interval of remote learning?

We have learned a lot. We’ve had some awesome successes and better understand the challenges and what can best support students, parents, and teachers. Planning and preparing for various possible future scenarios including remote learning is underway and will be a summer emphasis. Remote learning for any possible sustained future period will benefit from summer professional activity using the feedback gained from the recent parent survey. Thus far, for example, we’re hearing interest in a more regular schedule, more live teacher time, and more equitable allocation of the specials. In any future remote learning scenario we all will benefit from a more continuous loop of feedback from parents and more efficient systems of feedback between teachers and students and vice versa.

Tuition: Anne-Marie Schmidt 
Technology: Joe Peacock 
Counseling and consultation, mental health referrals, equity: Pat Harden 
Lower School learning support: Barb Turner 
Middle School learning support: Chiquita McCoy 
Lower School: Elizabeth Lener 
Middle School: Jared Givarz 
Summer Day Camp: Hugh Squire 
Communications: Christen Kinard