Arbor Preschool Covid 19 Policy
At Arbor, we consider the health of our students, teachers, and family of utmost importance. We have several policies in place in accordance with state and local recommendations to ensure the safety and health of everyone. We will be evaluating our policies as Covid continues to evolve. That being said, one of the greatest preventative measures is our sense of community. We believe that when you sign up to join the Arbor family, that you will take into consideration the best interests of the community as a whole when navigating Covid. We trust the members of our community to consider the group when making decisions around Covid risk, to get vaccinated, to test after travel, and to mask when it is appropriate. If we work together, we can keep our Arbor family safe!
We also care deeply about the social and emotional development of our students. For many children, preschool is their first foray into the world of formal education as well as their first exposure to other groups of children and adults that are not their family. This is especially true after over a year of quarantine and limited social engagement for everyone. While they are learning other skills, one of the main goals of preschool is social and emotional growth. The preschool years are known as a critical period for the development of emotional categories and sensitivity to facial emotional movements is fundamental to their competence in doing so. When faces are covered, it is much more difficult for preschool aged children to identify emotions, which is supported by research on the topic. To this end, our COVID policies are as follows:
All family members within the student's household that can be, must be vaccinated.
When vaccines are available for children ages 2-5, all students must also be vaccinated, within 3 months of becoming eligible. We will treat covid 19 vaccines as we would any other vaccine recommended for children.
When families travel, everyone, including the student, will be tested before coming back to school. We will also require tests after any known exposures and for student displaying symptoms. We will have rapid tests on site for students and staff for such occurrences.
Barring smoke or rain, we will be outdoors the majority of the day until students are vaccinated or Delta fades away and case numbers dramatically decrease. We have a large, multi-level outdoor space and students will be divided into two groups of 11 that will rotate between the spaces throughout the day. Masks for students are optional outside.
Our indoor facility is a single large room lined with French doors and windows. When we are inside and weather and air quality allows, we will have all of the doors and windows open with fans to create a similar level of safety to that of the outdoors. We will also have adequate HEPA filters throughout the space. These filter systems will draw the air up (verses spread it across the room) and clean all of the air every 10-15 minutes. These filters are also important for flu season in general, as well as ensuring clean indoor air during smoke season. We will ask students and staff to wear masks indoors while Alameda county recommends it.
When we cannot have windows and doors open due to smoke, we will maintain HEPA filters for the space to keep the air as clean as possible.
Masks are optional outdoors for staff. All of our staff are fully vaccinated.
Masks are optional for parents at pick-up, though parents may not come indoors at this time. Parents should all be fully vaccinated.
Students and staff will regularly sanitize throughout the day. We will do daily temp checks upon arrival. Temperatures of 100.4 will be considered a fever.
We will maintain a regularly sanitized facility by a professional cleaning service.
Should you travel in shared transportation and/or stay in shared accommodation with other individuals who are not vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status, we strongly recommend that your (as of now) unvaccinated child remain at home until they receive a negative lab test 5 days after the last possible exposure or two negative take home tests on days 4 and 5 after the last possible exposure. In the event that this is not possible for your family, we will ask that your child wear an N95 mask at school (we will support proper wearing/placement) and that you administer a daily at home test that must be shared with the school until day 5.