COVID-19 Update and Request

Ted Graf, Head of School
Wednesday, January 12, 2022    headwaters.org | calendar | login
Dear Headwaters Community, 
 
Since we reopened on January 4, we have been doing a great job of supporting each other and resetting our habits around masking and social distancing. We’re grateful to guides, parents, and students for their remarkable efforts.

We have been paying close attention to our attendance patterns for both students and guides; we have been adjusting and, wherever possible, enhancing our mitigation measures; we have been tracking our exposures and close contacts; and we have been listening to the advice from the Texas Private School Association (TPSA), Austin Public Health (APH), and other local schools. As of yesterday afternoon, January 11, our absence patterns and mitigation measures have been holding steady.

We know, however, that some local schools have needed to close temporarily, and we understand that if our community case count of COVID-19 spikes, we may need to do the same. We want to give our community as much clarity and time as possible to prepare if this becomes necessary. 

The TPSA has suggested that if our absentee rates reach 20% or more of our guides or 30% or more of our students, we should consider closing. The good news is that our numbers for each campus are currently below these thresholds. Given the community transmission in the Austin area, this could change very quickly. If that’s the case, we will communicate a closure with as much advance notice as possible. Our plan is to keep any absence-related closures as localized as possible to minimize the impact on other grades, cohorts, and campuses. For example, we may need to temporarily close one campus but not another or one program and not another.

It is more important than ever to complete your Magnus Symptom Screening each morning and show the GO screen at arrival. Just one symptom of COVID-19 is cause to not attend school. As a reminder, we do not allow a negative rapid test the same morning your child develops a COVID-19 symptom (see page 8 in the COVID-19 Addendum for more on Returning to Campus).

Please be sure to check your email from school a few times each day and stay home if you’re sick. We do not want to close any of our campuses, but that may be necessary.
 
Take care,
 
Ted
 
Ted Graf
Head of School
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