WIS 2020–21 Plans

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WIS Primary Campus at 1690 36th Street NW. Photo courtesy of WIS.

WIS Primary Campus at 1690 36th Street NW. Photo courtesy of WIS.

By Suzanna Jemsby, Head of School, Washington International School

Note: Originally published on August 12, this post has been updated to include the paragraph below, which was contained in the September 29 email from Ms. Jemsby to the Burleith listserv.

On Monday, October 5, WIS will resume on-campus instruction. We have planned a cohort model, which means approximately half of our enrolled students will come to campus each day. The School has established a variety of procedures and policies in an effort to keep our community members safe, including a mandatory mask-wearing policy. In terms of the effect of the neighbourhood, you will see an increase of traffic during our morning drop off and afternoon pick up. We have staggered the drop-off and pick-up times to manage traffic, but we expect cars will proceed a little more slowly the first few days. I would also like to note that for now we will not have after-school programs, so the afternoon pick-up will be a bit more concentrated. We appreciate your patience as our community adjusts. Of course we will ask our parents, students, and staff to be respectful to neighbours and mindful of parking and other rules.

The WIS 2020–21 school year begins on August 24. After careful consideration, we have decided to begin in a distance learning mode, and will remain in that status through the end of September. 

While we won’t hold regular classes on campus in September, you will start to see some activity. Our teachers will return later this week; next week we will hold orientations and meet and greets for Primary School families. We will bring some of our youngest students to campus, in small groups, as early as the week of September 8. We plan to increase the number and frequency of student visits to campus during September, assuming it is safe to do so. By October, we hope it will be appropriate to move into our “medium-risk” model, when our youngest students will be on campus daily along with half of our Grades 1–5 students. These older Primary grades will form two cohorts, alternating a week on campus with a week learning from home.

Beyond our educational goals, our priority this year will be to keep all members of our community safe and healthy. To that end, we have prepared information for re-opening our campuses. Our Return to WIS guide is accessible here, as well as on WIS’s COVID-19 page. Along with a variety of safety procedures, you'll note the document contains “Community Expectations” that outline our mutual responsibility to protect each other—we’ll continue to remind our parents, students, and staff that these expectations extend to our neighbours. You are more than welcome to contact me at suzanna.jemsby@wis.edu or (202) 342-1818 with any questions about Return to WIS or our plans for the year.

In another piece of news, the renovation of our Primary School playground should be complete by the end of August. Obviously this won’t be the year to host open playground events for neighbours, but we look forward to that possibility at some point in the future.