WEEKLY MESSAGE | 10.10.20
Hi all,
Writing with a couple of requests and updates:
Vote
Anti-bias and Anti-racist education
Reopening
Read on below...
This is always our biggest fundraiser of the year – raising 70% of the funds we raise all year and underwriting 10-15% of Larchmont’s annual budget. This year COVID19 is keeping us from being able to do our other major fundraisers for the year. We know the pandemic is impacting everyone differently – please stretch to give meaningfully and to help those in our community who can’t.
Please donate now at www.larchmontcharter.org/give. Thank you.
A reminder to be sure to register (lavote.net) and to vote – it’s critically important up and down the ballot.
As an intentionally diverse school, Anti-bias and Anti-racist education is core to our mission and always has been. Our work is guided in part by Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves by Julie Olsen Edwards and Louise Derman-Sparks. They highlight 4 goals of Anti-Bias Education centering on:
1) learning about one’s own identity
2) building awareness/comfort/joy around diversity
3) being able to identify unfairness
4) taking action against unfairness when you see it.
These goals align so well with Larchmont’s mission to serve a diverse community, to have students learn with and from each other, and to instill in them a dedication to improving the world. Thank you for supporting this important work.
We have started 1:1 in-person special education assessments on campus. The L.A. County Department of Public Health gave us a really positive report when they inspected our assessment sites last week. This is an important part of deepening our readiness for when it’s safe to open more fully. We’re also launching working groups across campuses to engage staff in the important work of thinking through how best to prepare and adapt operationally and instructionally for that time. As a reminder, L.A. County remains in Purple Tier 4 which is the most restrictive tier because the virus is considered widespread with more than 7 cases per 100,000 residents (7.3) and/or a positivity rate above 8% (at 2.9%) for the last seven days. L.A. is meeting the positivity rate metric but not the number of cases per 100,000 residents. It’s important to note that we understand the number of people being tested has also gone down from about 20,000 per day to about half that. This can artificially impact these numbers. L.A. County would need to be below 7 cases per 100,000 residents and below 8% positivity to move to Red Tier 3 and then would need to remain in the red tier for 14 days in order for schools to be allowed to reopen. The bottom line is that we continue to monitor the public health data and will be guided by it and will work closely with our whole community to chart the path forward.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions about any of this.
That’s it for now. Thank you so much for all you do to make Larchmont great.
Warmly,
Amy