I hope this email finds you and your family healthy and well.
Let me start by praising the school’s Vision 2020 | Transition Team’s extensive efforts over this summer. They faced a difficult task -- first imagining, then drafting, and finally reinventing our on-campus Vanguard learning experience. The goal was to create a plan to allow students and faculty a safe return with significant safety precautions enacted. Thankfully, Vision 2020 met the challenge.
I began drafting this letter earlier in the week, intending to send it today. Last night, however, the Waco-McLennan County Public Health District announced that school campuses in Waco, public or private, could not return to school for in-person activity before September 7, 2020. For the summer, it seems that every time we put out an update, a facet of the community changes. However, our faculty and staff are always prepared to make adjustments without hesitation or effort to support our Vanguard families. That is our commitment to you.
Please see the attached Vanguard On-Campus Health and Wellness Guide, developed by the Vision 2020 | Transition Team in coordination with Dr. Rod Richie. We were originally sending the guide to you on Friday, with health and safety at the center of all that we are doing. In light of the new local order restrictions, I wanted to share this information with you as the timing has changed but Vanguard remains ready to bring students back on campus.
Over the next week, I will be attending several meetings at the local and state level to provide further updates to you about our school’s ability at which level we are allowed to interact with students.
Let’s start with what we know: we will teach your students, and we will do it without reservation. Our goal is to continue to be the best choice in private education for Central Texas. We are ready, flexible, and dedicated to helping your students learn; it’s our calling. We will creatively and relentlessly pursue that end.
School begins in a little over a month and we will plan for August virtual events to support students due to the local order released yesterday. Please know we are working with the City and State for more clarity on this new order. Please know that more information about our August schedule will be sent out soon.
More than anything, we want your children on campus in our classrooms and we want to make things as normal as possible for them. We will be ready to start on time with in-person education as soon as it is possible. We recognize that a difference of opinion exists around the safety of in-class schooling and we respect those views, and we are totally committed to providing world-class in-person education for your children as soon as it is legally possible.
Please do the following to help our Vision 2020 | Transition Team.
We look forward to having students on campus soon. Please know the health and safety of our community and of our families and faculty are of the utmost importance.