Head of School Update | December 7, 2020

Dear Mayfield Junior School Community,

 

The health and safety of our school community are of utmost importance. Out of an abundance of caution in response to the surging COVID-19 case count in Pasadena and L.A. County, we are announcing that beginning tomorrow, Tuesday, December 8, our campus will be closed to all students. Kindergarten students will join First through Eighth-Grade students in our Forward Remote program. Middle school athletic conditioning will pause through at least Christmas Break.

 

Mayfield Junior School is committed to doing all that we can to keep our school and surrounding community as safe and healthy as possible. We must exercise additional caution as we near Christmas Break as positive COVID-19 case counts continue to climb. These current numbers do not include Thanksgiving figures yet. Additionally, Southern California’s available ICU capacity is below 15-percent.

 

During the last week, the number of First and Second-Grade families who have chosen Forward Remote has doubled. As of today, less than 50-percent of our Kindergarten to Second-Grade students have selected Forward On-Campus.

 

Since March, we have been blessed that positive cases have not closely touched our school community. As of our latest COVID-19 testing on December 1, we did not have any positive cases of anyone currently on campus, but our circle of “safety” is growing smaller. We now have more close contact cases than we did a few weeks ago with the recent surge. 

 

Thanks to our Ever Forward planning teams, we are prepared for this scenario and can quickly adjust the delivery of our academic program.

 

Christmastime drive-thrus and celebrations will continue as scheduled. Mayfield will still host COVID-19 testing on December 14, 2020. We will send more information about our testing days soon.

 

All Kindergarten to Eighth-Grade students will remain in their cohorts and will be in Forward Remote until at least January 19, 2021. We pray the COVID surge has subsided at that time and that we can return to on-campus learning as quickly as possible. We will continue to survey families to help inform our decisions. Our campus will be ready for the return of students again. 

 

Continued blessings to you.

 

Joe Sciuto

Head of School