We walk by faith, not by sight

Dear colleagues,

I hope that all of you are staying safe. I know that this new coronavirus situation has been causing a lot of concerns, especially in regards to when the schools will resume for sure and what we are going to do to provide safety to our staff and students. I understand all of your concerns, and I will try my best to keep you updated on what is happening and what the Admin team is working on at this time. If you ever have any questions, please contact me anytime.

First of all, the Chinese government has been doing a lot of work aimed at spreading awareness, providing the community with educational resources, and strengthening prevention in all institutions, especially schools. Our office is following the updates from the provincial and city government and education departments, and we are responding as quickly as possible to meet their requirements. As you have noticed, we have been collecting and documenting all student and staff recent travel and medical history. We are also working on putting together a prevention, response, and education emergency plan that we will be submitting to the government for approval before we are allowed to resume classes. Once the plan is approved, I will share it with all of you. If you have any previous experience in emergency response or if you feel passionate about disease prevention and student safety, please message me. I would appreciate any of your input into making our campus safe for everyone.

Second, thank you all of you who provided their input on how to make up for the missed classes. The Admin team is strongly considering online classes and has started researching different options. If you have any ideas to share about online platforms that we could potentially use, please contact your supervising principal. We will have more updates on how we will proceed sometime this week.

Third, regardless of how we will proceed with the makeup, all staff is required to be on-call starting February 3rd. Teachers might have to be on-call to do some planning this current week. Please stay connected and check your WeChat and emails often.

Fourth, as of today, the date when we are allowed to be on campus is February 17th. We will need to have a staff workday so we can disinfect and prepare our campus for when the students return. We will also need to do staff training that day on symptoms of the virus, proper hand and respiratory hygiene, reporting, etc. I will try my best to send you learning materials so you can study in advance. During the first day of school for the students, all teachers will have to instruct students on prevention methods during the first period.

Fifth, please stay safe. If you do not have an emergency need to go outside, please stay indoors. If you do need to go out, you must wear a mask, have hand sanitizer with you, or even gloves. Disinfect everything and wash your hands regularly because prevention and education are the keys to combat this disease.

I understand how concerned and scared you might feel, but please remember He is in control. Let’s use this time to pray for all of those who are infected, who are stuck in the quarantined zones, and those amazing medical staff who are fighting the disease on the frontlines. No matter how scary and hard this situation is, I believe that He will use it to glorify His name and strengthen our hope.

Best regards,
Ana Patenaude