COVID-19 FAQs*

Here is a core list of protocols:

• Carpool only for drop-off and pick-up.
• Visitation inside the building will be by appointment only; gatherings for school events will be restricted to either individual class sections or grade levels, according to the school’s advance communications for these events.  
• Frequent regimen of hand-washing and respiratory etiquette throughout the day.
• We are following the CDC and AAP guidelines and asking that all students (age 2 & up) and faculty and staff wear a cloth face covering inside the school building.  Masks must be worn during carpool for children age 2 and up, including all parents, faculty, and staff. Masks will not be required during outdoor play. 
• Daily cleaning and sanitizing by maintenance staff.
• Frequent outdoor play and fresh air whenever possible.

Drop-off will look similar to what Levine has done in the past; however: drop off will be carpool only; adults will be wearing face masks; and no parent may enter the building with his/her child, unless pre-arranged and pre-approved by the school.  

Each morning, before leaving for campus and morning carpool drop-off, please check your children for any symptoms -- fever, headache, fatigue, cough, etc. -- and keep all of your children home if you have even one child whose symptoms need to be addressed. Inform the school if you need to keep your children home for this reason, and we will be back in touch with you about next steps.

Also, here at school, faculty have been informed that we will be sending home all siblings of any student who is exhibiting symptoms during the school day, and they will all need to remain home until the matter is resolved.

Teachers will be monitoring snack time to make sure that no sharing of food takes place. Student tables and positioning at each table for snacks or for EC lunch will be arranged in such a way as to assure separation. Following each snack time, tables will be cleaned and sanitized by staff.

K8 lunches will take place in Beit Aryeh and student tables will be separated by grade; the same hygiene and monitoring procedures will take place in lunch as snack time.

Social distancing will be practiced whenever possible throughout the school day including within the classrooms and hallways, especially during snack and lunch time when masks will not be worn. Each grade will remain with its cohort for programs throughout the day.  For larger gatherings – such as Shabbat or prayer services -- student cohorts will be separated appropriately.

A cohort is a unit of students defined by each grade level in Early Childhood (Infants, Toddlers, Two’s Three’s, and Pre-K) through 4th Grade.  5th and 6th grades will represent one cohort, and 7th and 8th grade will constitute another cohort. The principle behind the cohort approach is to keep each cohort grouping separated from other cohorts in order to minimize every student’s exposure throughout the school day.

We are following the CDC and AAP guidelines and asking that all students (age 2 & up) and faculty and staff wear a cloth face covering whenever indoors  at school. Masks must be worn during carpool for children age 2 and up, including all parents, faculty, and staff. Masks will not be required during outdoor play or during snack or lunchtime.

Your child is welcome to wear a face shield in addition to their face masks, but cloth face masks are required on-campus, not face shields.

Children will not be wearing masks during nap time. The children will be distanced and spread out around the room.

Staff will not be taking temperatures during carpool; however, we ask parents to check their children for symptoms each morning before arriving at school. We ask that parents keep their children home and notify the school whenever their child is exhibiting symptoms. The school will communicate with you regarding next steps.

Yes, if there is a quarantine period for a group of students, we will pivot to our distance learning platform forthwith.

Parents will be sent a letter outlining best and safe practices for families to follow. The aim in this communication will be for all of us to accept and act on our responsibility to conduct ourselves according to the safeguards so that we can all return to school with the best chance for uniform health and readiness. Some examples include social distancing, wearing a mask when leaving the house, and asking families not to participate in large group gatherings. We are all in this together and the success and well-being of our school, our students, and our faculty and staff is dependent on the partnership of all of our families to follow these recommendations for all of us to stay healthy and safe.

We will divide our EC earlycare/aftercare by cluster. I.e. Infants will stay with infants, toddlers with toddlers, etc.

EC Class Sizes
Will be well under the criteria set by the State guidelines.

K8 Class Sizes
We plan to keep our student/teacher ratio at the same low number as always. The CDC guidelines call for one student per 45 sq. ft. and our school will be well under that number.

Our religious services will take place by division and with cohort groupings being separated (for K8); for EC Shabbat services, only one grade level at a time will be in Beit Am. We also plan to live stream these programs for our community, when feasible.

We do plan to administer ERB and MAP testing at the standard testing times.

- Middle School students will not change into P.E. uniforms.
- All students are required to wear masks. We will have designated areas for mask breaks.
- P.E. will be outside on all days, weather permitting.
- Students will be divided by class. When inside, we will use the gym divider. 
- Multiple sanitizing bottles spread throughout the gym and outside.
- All equipment will be sanitized after each use. When groups are sharing equipment, sanitation will be conducted during breaks.
- Students are required to bring water bottles. Water drinking fountains will be turned off.
- Students will engage in more running/calisthenic type workouts, in addition to skills and drills in sports.
- Students will play games and engage in challenges that require less peer-to-peer interaction.

Yes -- we will provide parent training for Schoology before the start of the school year. If you have more Questions or need guidance on the K8 Schoology platform, please contact Louise Crain (mailto:lcrain@levineacademy.org), Educational Technology Specialist.

Levine is prepared to offer virtual only for students because of a COVID quarantine event or while awaiting test results. The virtual option will not be offered to students whose families go on vacation when Levine is in session. Virtual is also not an option for families who keep students home in preparation for an upcoming large gathering or party -- these large gatherings    the school does not condone. Such a virtual hop-on/hop-off pattern is an extraordinary burden to our teachers and is a major distraction in the classroom. If a student is away on a vacation when Levine is in session, he/she can keep pace by following lessons and homework posted on Schoology. (as of 8.1.2021)

We are aware that as time goes on, children may need to stay home for various reasons including illness or suspected exposure or during the time in which the family is awaiting a test result. Levine Academy is committed to ensuring that all of our students, regardless of their situation (in school, learning virtually, or out of school temporarily) are able to keep up with their schoolwork and remain part of our keep pace with the curriculum. We encourage any student or staff member who is not feeling well to stay home in an abundance of caution to be sure that we minimize exposure to illness within our school.

For individual students who need to be home for non-COVID purposes, teachers will advise the absent K8 student to  continue with schoolwork posted on Schoology. In any case, contacting your child’s teacher in any absence circumstance will be the best step to take. If any EC student is absent for more than a few days, parents should contact his/her teacher.

Our administrative team and our teachers are ready and willing to speak to each parent on an individual basis if their student needs to stay home for any amount of time due to an illness or exposure and work out a customized plan for their continued learning based on what will work within their class and for their situation.

As always, we are here to partner with you and ask for your understanding as each situation is individual and each class is different.

Levine has established procedures to ensure students and staff who become sick at school or who arrive at school sick are sent home as soon as possible. We will keep anyone sick separate from well students and staff until the sick person can be sent home. Should any students or faculty members who were determined to have been in "close contact" with a person testing positive will be asked to stay home to quarantine for 7 days with a COVID test being administered on day four or five; students who are on quarantine and who do not get tested must remain home for 10 days, and may return to school after the 10 day quarantine period if symptom-free.

The individuals who tested positive do not need to have a repeat test done—serving the full quarantine (10-days) time frame, in addition to being symptom-free, will allow that person to return to school.

Regarding siblings of the positive test individual, the same 10 day quarantine would apply, with a COVID test on day four or five of that quarantine period. Siblings may return to school if testing negative and symptom-free after ten days (contact the COVID team for isolation provisions).

When a household member must get tested, then the children must remain home and cannot return until the matter is resolved, either when the affected family member receives a negative test or following the standard quarantine period if a family member tests positive.

Anyone who has had "close contact" with someone with COVID-19 should stay home for 7-days after their last exposure to that person who tested positive, then may return if symptom-free and they receive a negative COVID test after day four or five of the quarantine period.

However, anyone who has had "close contact" with someone with COVID-19 and who:

• developed COVID-19 illness within the previous 3 months and
• has recovered and
• remains without COVID-19 symptoms (for example, cough, shortness of breath)

does not need to stay home.

Here are the testing and quarantine protocols as advanced by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC:

A child (or adult) with any COVID symptoms should be tested for COVID without delay.

However, an asymptomatic individual who has been exposed needs to quarantine for 7 days regardless of a negative COVID test, and may return if he/she receives a negative Covid test on day four or five of the seven day quarantine period.

If an asymptomatic individual with an exposure wants testing they should wait at least 4-days from the known exposure before getting tested.

The child, under these circumstances, must remain home until fully recovered from the cold or illness, with a doctor’s note necessary for return to campus, or a negative COVID PCR test.

No, this year the school staff will not be taking student temperatures at carpool; instead, we ask all families to check their children for any symptoms prior to arriving at school and to keep their children home and notify the school if they are keeping their child home.

Each student will use either hand sanitizer or conduct hand washing several times each day: When they arrive to school; every time they leave or enter a room; before and after they use the bathroom; before and after they eat; before and after they go outside.

The fever policy will revert back to our usual protocol this school year: Children who are running a fever (> 100 degrees) must stay at home and may return if symptom-free, fever-free for 24 hours before returning to school -- with either a doctor's note or negative COVID test. 

Keep your child home if you, your child, or someone within your household have any symptoms. Always err on the side of caution. Please contact the COVID Response Team and your EC Director or K8 Principal.

We are following CDC guidelines on EPA-approved cleaning products in schools.

Please contact the COVID Response Team and your EC Director or K8 Principal whenever you have one of these situations:

• Keeping a child home because of illness.
• Keeping a child home because a member of the household is being tested for COVID and awaiting results.
• Keeping a child home because of a potential exposure to a positive case.
• When a school family member tests positive—this would be any household member: the student, a sibling, a parent, any relative or person living in the household.

You may also wish to share travel plans; family activity plans that may pose risk; or any after-school or weekend teams or activities you are considering for your child.

Yes, you will be contacted by a member of the school’s COVID Response Team.  These team members will help you to determine those in your family who are potentially exposed and will help you understand any quarantine requirements that may result from exposure or infection.

If a member of our campus community—student, teacher or staff member—tests positive, we will report this fact to the entire school, but in keeping with HIPAA requirements, we will not disclose any names. 

We will be sending communication about carpool with a directional map and instructions closer to the start of school.

Parents, with masks on, will remove the babies from the car and teachers will then take the children and their belongings into the building. Children old enough to exit the car without parent assistance will exit the car with the teachers.

At any time during aftercare, you will be able to pull up to the front entrance and call Dana Shidlofsky, Director of Extend Care and Educare. Dana will bring your child out to your car.

Morning and afternoon carpool will be at the same time as usual.

Because school closures can pose a burden for many of our early childhood families and because we recognize there are limits to the effectiveness of distance learning for Early Childhood children, we have instituted a refund policy: Should Levine need to close down the entire school for a period  longer than two weeks, the school will begin refunding our EC families at a rate of 70% of the tuition after an initial two week closure period.

The refund policy will apply only in a situation of a school-wide closure. Regarding an EC section closing down for two weeks because of a positive COVID-19 case, the refund policy would not apply; however, we ask those families needing tuition assistance to contact our business office in cases where multiple quarantine periods pose financial hardship.

The tuition rate is the same, whether your child is here on campus in the EC program or if your child is at home for distance learning. The school must keep full tuition in force in order to keep our faculty in place throughout the year and ready for the time when your child returns to campus.