On Wednesday evening, Grace families received an email from the WellGrace Team informing them that a member of the community has tested positive for COVID-19. According to the email, this student was \u201clast in the building on A-Day Monday,\u201d which means that a number of students could have been exposed to the virus. Therefore, all 10th-12th graders in Cohort A will switch to remote learning starting immediately. Their next A-Day on campus would have been Feb. 12. They will remain online until Feb. 22 and will be required to submit a negative COVID test prior to re-entering the building. While everyone knew what we were getting ourselves into before Grace entered the newly adopted hybrid learning model back in late-September, it still comes as a wake-up call to everyone in this community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Grace Gazette<\/em> reached out to Head of High-School Mr. Mahabir for his thoughts on how this will impact the community. He shared that \u201cit\u2019s not much of a disruption because we are accustomed to teaching remotely and always have students in classes remotely, either because their cohort is at home or [because] they are all remote from home,\u201d and noted that,because of the long-weekend and community week, Cohort A \u201cis only losing 3 days of \u2018in-person\u2019 classes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although it was certainly disheartening to learn that a Grace student had tested positive for COVID-19, we can find comfort in Grace\u2019s comprehensive response to the pandemic. \u201cOur system has stood the test of time for almost 6 months now. We have a good plan, which we manage carefully,\u201d said Mahabir. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving forward, Mahabir feels confident that Grace will continue to successfully manage the pandemic, but emphasized that \u201cWe need to stick to all of our protocols and be consistent, without making exceptions to these protocols and rules. This will give us the most optimal conditions to control and protect the school environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obviously, we don\u2019t want anyone in our community to come down with the virus, though we cannot allow one positive student to cause panic. As long as we stick to what has gotten us this far and remain diligent in adhering to the proper protocols, we will continue to persevere through these challenging times while still finding ways to engage with our peers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"