Hi LCLA Families!
As you likely already heard, beginning Monday, July 13th, Public Health of Madison and Dane County has issued a mandate that all people over the age of 5 years old wear a face covering when they are, or even might, come into close contact with someoneoutside of their family unit.
For the teachers and staff at LCLA, this doesn’t change a whole lot of how we have been operating. We mandated masks for staff as soon as we saw COVID-19 numbers in Dane County begin to surge again.
We have been encouraging adults who are dropping off or picking up outside the building to mask up. Per Public Health, this will now become a requirement. To enter the building, adults have always been required to mask up, this policy will continue.
Any child we are serving who is over the age of 5 years old will now be required to wear a mask at LCLA. Being that we have a mixed age Preschool Room, we know this will be challenging. Some children may be wearing masks while others aren’t. We do serve a small number of children who have turned 5 years old, or will turn 5 years old sometime over the summer. If this is the case, we will do our best to help your child get used to wearing a mask inside the building. We will do this slowly, and with compassion for what is developmentally appropriate and what is trauma sensitive at this moment in time.
No child under the age of 2 years old should ever wear a mask. Children this age can’t regulate their breathing enough to make this a safe choice for them. For children between the ages of 2 years to 5 years old, we are leaving it to you, the adult(s) in the child’s home, to decide what you would like to do. We will not, at this time, require a child of this age to wear a face covering at school.
Until a vaccine for COVID-19 is developed and administered community wide, face coverings are probably going to be a way of life for the foreseeable future. As always, as part of your child’s network of support, the teachers at LCLA want to do what we can to support your family and your child. We do recommend you start introducing your child to the idea of wearing a face covering. If you are doing this at home, we are happy to reinforce this teaching at school too. You can put the face covering on and take a walk through your neighborhood just for practice. You can have your child help you put your face covering on before exiting your car to come to LCLA. There are a lot of ways to slowly introduce children to concept of wearing face coverings in a way that still creates felt safety for your child. If you need more ideas, please ask your child’s teacher and they are happy to help with a plan for this.
Thank you!
Becky
Administrator
Little Chicks Learning Academy
