Part A: Reopening Principles and Committees
Guiding Principles for Reopening
- Health and Safety: Upholding the highest physical and social-emotional health and safety standards for students and educators.
- Academic Excellence: A consistently high-level, value added, General and Judaic academic experience in whatever context we are in.
- Two-Way Communication: A systematic method of both standard and COVID-19-related communications - from school to families and families to school - throughout the year.
- Technology: A balance between using technology to advance the educational needs of our students during this time, with research-based recommended amounts of screen time.
- Scenario-Preparedness: Being able to seamlessly switch learning modes should the need arise, supporting students, educators and parents.
- Community: Reinforcing our connection with each other and strengthening our support system for our families and individuals in need.
- Menschlichkeit: Maintaining our mission of being a mensch at all times in all places.
Reopening Committees
- Educational Leadership Team: Rabbi Joshua Lookstein, Rachel Goldman, Dr. Naomi Adler, Amy Ament, Tamar Benjamin, Lauren Kaplan, Jamie Schneider Schwartz Responsible for the entirety of the educational experience for students, in person and remotely.
- Medical Committee: Chair, Dr. Jana RommResponsible for vetting the various educational and logistical plans for their impact on the health and safety of students and educators.
- Finance: Chair, Ben BernsteinResponsible for understanding, designing, and continuously updating a financial model for the coming year and ensuring fiscal responsibility.
- Alternative Revenue: Chair, Susan WachsstockResponsible for generating other sources of revenue to help support the physical and technological enhancements needed during this time.
- Spacial Redesign: Chair, Josh TrumpResponsible for identifying structures and structural changes to adhere to health and safety precautions.
- Logistics: Chair, Michelle CohenResponsible for creating the systems and protocols that incoporate all of the changes necessary to enable a smooth running of the school.
- Technology: Chair, Dani GoldResponsible for surveying the landscape of the available technology to enable students to learn efficiently anywhere.
- Marketing and Communications: Chair, Susie MeyersResponsible for communicating our reopening plans and achievements going forward.
Medical Committee
Guiding Principles
The committee is made up of seven WDS parents who are doctors with various specialties, as well as a non-parent pediatrician who trained in Infectious Diseases. Dr. Adler, Rabbi Lookstein, and Rachel Goldman are on the committee as well to ensure that the committee's guidance is directly applicable to the school's routines.
- We want to welcome children and educators in school in September and beyond in a safe and practical manner.
- We will follow NYS reopening guidelines when they come out because they are thorough and research-based and we believe they provide the optimum conditions for the health and safety of our students and educators.
- There will never be a point where the risk of infection is zero. The goal is to mitigate risk as much as possible. The #1 solution for the mitigation of COVID-19 spread is the combination of precautionary measures, which include:
- Masks
- Social distancing
- Cohorts
- Frequent hand sanitizing and hand washing
- A comprehensive morning screening process
- Spending time outdoors
- Protocols for when someone is symptomatic
- Thorough cleaning and disinfecting procedures for the premises
- Common sense
The combination of all of the above compensates for when one or more elements are not present.
Who We Are
Westchester Day School is a Modern Orthodox, co-educational, dual-curriculum, toddler to 8th grade Jewish school that inspires and educates our students in their own way to value menschlichkeit, mitzvot, and lifelong learning.
