]The first planned day off is on Monday, October 12, after only having one day of school with everybody present on the previous Friday, October 9. This day will act as a “trial run,” and will give teachers the chance to work out any kinks in the new 100% capacity schedule and to fix any issues for the next week.

Instead of the faculty having more scheduled time to work together on curriculum and other school-related initiatives, in her September 28 letter, Mrs. Soderberg said, “they are working more hours in both online and in-person work with less collegial contact — a set of circumstances that goes against all we know to underpin good teaching.”

 The school has set aside one day per month this semester when students will remain home while faculty will be provided time to meet and plan as they would during a non-pandemic year. Students may still receive asynchronous work in some classes and the letter days will remain in place on these days off. 

In addition to October 12, the other days off are November 10 and December 2.