Dear Community Members,
After many months of planning and hard work, our yeshivot have, Baruch Hashem, been able to open up their doors again to our precious children. Watching students learn inside our classrooms for the last few weeks has been absolutely extraordinary! Children benefiting from in-person instruction is the sole motivation of the massive effort put forth to get here.
Our collective task now is to keep our buildings open. Preserving the viability of our schools is something that can only be done with true partnership. With the current uptick of COVID cases locally, and several quarantine situations that have already affected our community, we must be especially vigilant about the health and safety of our students, faculty, and the entire community during the upcoming chagim.
We have made sure that the necessary safety protocols and structures are in place on our campuses to limit the likelihood of COVID spread, but the greatest jeopardy of our ability to stay open is what happens off campus, and in the decisions being made by our families.
We have all been living in this new reality long enough to know what limits and promotes the spread of this terrible virus. You – each and every member of the community – simply need to make the right choices. You need to recognize how much harm can be caused by even one family making the wrong ones. Lives are at stake, as is our ability and mission to educate our thousands of students.
The worst choice you can make is to knowingly violate our most basic health guidelines. Any student/family who does so will be subject to disciplinary action that will include distance learning for the remainder of the year and possible expulsion.
Examples of knowingly violating our health guidelines include, but are not limited to:
- Knowingly coming to school with a pre-existing symptom of COVID.
- Not informing the school about out-of-state or international travel plans by emailing safety@halb.org or wellness@haftr.org.
- Visiting a location on the NYS COVID-19 Travel Advisory List and not adhering to the mandatory quarantine period that follows.
- Being exposed to someone positive for COVID and not divulging that to the school and/or not adhering to the mandatory quarantine period.
- Not being forthcoming/fully transparent with school personnel about any COVID related concerns.
- Our goal is not to be punitive, but we have an obligation to do all that we can to ensure safety and ongoing in-person learning for our children. With your partnership and cooperation, we can make that a reality.
As we approach Yom Kippur, we pray that Hashem seals us all in for a year of health, happiness, togetherness, and peace.
Gmar Chatima Tova,
Hebrew Academy of Long Beach
Mitch Kirschner, Co-President
Nathaniel Rogoff, Co-President
Lance Hirt, Chairman of the Board
Richard Altabe, Chairman Re-opening Committee
Richard Hagler, Executive Director
Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway
Neil Wiener, President
Amir Kornblum, Chairman of the Board
Ari Solomon, Executive Director
Categorised in: Local News
