Dear Staff and Families of LCLA,
I’m coming to you again with more information about COVID-19 and some possible changes we are considering to lower risk of spread of the virus within the centers.
Today the Madison Metropolitan School District announced that all learning within the district will occur virtually through, at least, October. Becky, one of LCLA’s owners, is a School Nurse in the district, working this summer in a direct role to support families impacted by COVID-19. She is learning a lot from school district summer child care offerings and from the daily Public Health updates she receives. Amanda, our Center Director, has been networking closely with other child care centers to make sure our policies are in line with theirs.
As we learn more about COVID-19 and patterns of transmission we have some changes we are considering to move us toward a true “pod approach” for our classrooms. We are keeping your child and our staff’s exposure risk small. We would like to make it even smaller.
We are considering making the following changes:
*Siblings would be in the same classroom, thus shifting our classrooms to mix-aged groups and eliminating our current looping system.
*Staff with children would be in the same classroom together.
*Staff who live together would become co-teachers in a classroom.
These changes would mean:
*Your child would most likely be moved to a different classroom with different staff and children.
*Your child will now be in a mixed age classroom.
*This change would remain in effect until LCLA deems it safe to return to our original looping and non-traditional system. At that time, LCLA would consider child development and staffing needs to recreate looping groups.
We are considering this change because our focus needs to be the safety of our families and staff, but we know that we are asking you to make yet another sacrifice that will have an impact on your child’s social-emotional development. LCLA is committed to making this change using trauma sensitive practices for the transitions, and with the support of an Instructional Coach/Teacher Mentor who will work with all our staff to help implement a curriculum that will continue to create academic and social-emotional growth in a mixed age setting.
HERE is a link to our survey where we are asking for your input on these changes. We ask that you return the survey by the end of the day on Monday, July 20th.
Thank you!
Becky Ketarkus and Jessie Pindilli,
LCLA Owners
Amanda Wilfert
LCLA Director
