COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

April 2, 2020

Good morning Tapestry Families,

I wanted to write and provide you all with an update and clarification based on the guidance that we are receiving from the New York State Education Department and also our authorizer, the SUNY Charter Schools Institute on what the next few weeks and will look like across the state and for us specifically at Tapestry.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding as we make our best attempt at these updates given the ever-changing landscape.  I find solace in the fact that the landscape is changing for everyone, not just for us at Tapestry, and that we’re all in this together.

Based on the latest guidance and based on our own school’s belief that maintaining consistent connection and structure with our students and families is highly beneficial, especially during this unprecedented time, we will be making adjustments to our K-12 Continuation of Instruction Plan to provide for that consistency during some days that were originally planned to include our spring break week (April 10-17).

What does this mean for you?  This will look a bit different in each school, but overall, we want to maintain consistency in communication and activity from the school to you and your children during the break week.  Each of our building principals will be reaching out to you all with more detail around what this means specifically for your children, so stay tuned for those updates.

Our tremendously talented, dedicated and hard-working Tapestry Food Service Team will continue their Drive-Thru meal service program between Tuesday, April 14th and Friday, April 17th from 9am-3pm.

Overall, we are not setting any expectations from Friday, April 10th through Monday, April 13th.  As always, we respect and acknowledge all religious holidays for all of our staff and families and we will work flexibly with everyone during this time.

I also wanted to send everyone a quick message about what we currently know and what are likely expectations for returning back to school this year.  As you all know, at this moment in time, we are ‘closed’ for regular brick and mortar schooling until Monday, April 20th.  While we haven’t yet heard updates from Governor Cuomo or the New York State Education Department directly on whether or not this date will be extended, I can tell you that it is highly likely that our ‘closure’ will extend well beyond that date to even potentially the remainder of the planned academic year.  NYSED leadership has told us that they are re-evaluating everything on a bi-weekly basis, and when we hear updates, you will hear updates.

To that end, the Compass Leadership Team is projecting and planning on continuing instruction remotely well beyond April 20th.  You will be hearing from us about what those longer-term plans may look like in the future, however it is very important for you all to know a few things in the meantime:

  1. This is a marathon, not a sprint.  Make sure to prioritize your health and the health of your families, mentally and physically.  We should get comfortable and stable within these new structures that you have built for yourselves and your children. Please set boundaries for yourselves, as I know many of you have experienced in the last weeks, working and supporting your children in academics remotely is a great balancing act.  Take time for you.
  2. We are crew.  We are all in this together.  That means that we will continue to support each other, we will lean on each other and we will lean on the core values of what makes this school community so special and unique.  This also means that our leadership team will continue to support you through open and transparent communication, guidance and shared decision-making that will carry us through these next weeks and months.
  3. Your children’s teachers are all doing such a phenomenal job.  I am constantly amazed and inspired by the work they are doing for our kids on a daily basis and at what they are accomplishing as a group of educators in our community.  When this mess is behind us, Tapestry will be held up as an incredible example of how a school staff served their community in an extraordinary and equitable way.
  4. We got this!  Tapestry was built to be able to handle adversity from deep within our foundation. We prioritize the care we take in each other, our students and families and the relationships that make learning happen beyond the walls of our school buildings.  “There is more in us than we know.  If we can be made to see it, perhaps, for the rest of our lives, we will be unwilling to settle for less.” -Kurt Hahn

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly.

We are crew.

Sincerely,

Eric Klapper

Executive Director