Update on 2021-2022 School Year from Principal Yu

AN UPDATE ON THE UPCOMING SCHOOL YEAR FROM PRINCIPAL YU!

Dear Stuyvesant Families,

I hope you are having a well-deserved summer break. Our summer has been busy as we recently finished our 6-week Summer Rising session last week—close to 170 students attended throughout the summer session working with our teachers to resolve NX grades from the 2020 - 2021 school year. It was so nice to see our students and teachers/staff who participated this summer interacting and engaging one another to help our young people catch up and/or get back on track. With the summer program now completed we are fully focused on the reopening for 2021 - 2022. We have one month until the first day of school and will continue to use the next four weeks to prepare our building and our community for reopening for all of our students and staff. In May the DOE announced that students benefit from in-person learning, and a full, safe return to in-person instruction is the priority. The DOE also shared in May that in accordance with CDC guidance, there would be a universal masking of all students, staff, teachers and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status. We have also used the CDCs Guidance for COVID-19 Prevention in K-12 Schools (updated August 5) to guide our planning. Key takeaways from the CDC guidance prioritize the following:

• Vaccination is the leading public health prevention strategy to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Promoting vaccination can help schools safely return to in-person learning as well as extracurricular activities and sports. 
• Screening testing, ventilation, handwashing and respiratory etiquette, staying home when sick and getting tested, contact tracing in combination with quarantine and isolation, and cleaning and disinfection are also important layers of prevention to keep schools safe.
• Students, teachers, and staff should stay home when they have signs of any infectious illness and be referred to their healthcare provider for testing and care.

We encourage families to take advantage of the vaccines (NYC DOE offers vaccine clinics across the City) available to students in order to protect both themselves and others. The vaccination efforts combined with our layered safety precautions can help minimize transmission and infection rates of the Delta variant. Our layered approach will include the following strategies:

• Mask usage for all students, staff, and visitors (masks will be available)
• Vaccination and/or regular testing of all staff
• Air purifiers (2 per classroom) in classrooms and office spaces
• MERV 13 filters in the entire building and open dampers to maximize ventilation and airflow 
• Hand sanitizer (dispensers in each classroom, various dispenser stations across the building, and individual bottles)
• Water bottle fillers (2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th floors) installation
• Two student entrances for entrance and dismissal
• Use of outdoor space (weather permitting) for Physical Education and lunch

Our custodial team has been working tirelessly to prepare the building and we know they will continue to support the efforts to maintain a clean and sanitized building.  I want to emphasize our layered approach to keep students and staff as safe as possible in preparation for September. We know you are eager and anxious about the new school year and we will offer as much information as we have available to keep you informed. In order to help you plan for the new school year, we will provide weekly email updates over the next four weeks to inform you about reopening procedures and guidelines. Please continue to review these weekly updates to help you prepare for September.  We do ask for your patience and understanding—we will need your partnership as we reopen to welcome back our students and staff. The following message is a good reminder for how we want to enter the new school year together.

Sincerely,

Seung C. Yu

Principal

Stuyvesant High School