Dear SCS Community,

I am writing this month in lieu of a traditional blogpost to update everyone on the status of our school after a year of dealing with the COVID19 Pandemic.  It was back in March of 2020 that our entire world at SCS was upended by the State of New Hampshire closing all schools due to the emerging pandemic.  Classes in our Early Childhood and After School Programs were shuttered with no known date of return.  At that moment we made the unique decision amongst our peer schools to continue to pay all faculty salaries in full and support all healthcare benefits, despite no assurances from the government that we would receive any help, and no plans to charge tuitions to our parents for the time they were home with their children.  It was a truly precarious moment and in my forty years in education I had never experienced anything like it.

 

During that time our community really stepped up and showed their mettle.  Teachers reached out to parents regularly with activities and online class meetings using a new technology called “Zoom” which we all learned on the fly.  Administrators continued to work from home every day and secured government loans, attended Health Department webinars, and eagerly awaited the latest news and directives from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  Our Board of Directors truly stepped up and met weekly to keep us afloat and moving forward.  Many parents contributed emergency funds freely to the school in our time of need (some continued to submit weekly childcare payments despite kids being home) and although we had been losing over $11,000 per week, kept the red ink from overwhelming us.  Hard work, smart advice from the Board, and a hearty New England commitment to survival pulled us through.

 

In June we reopened and about 60% of our families returned immediately.  Others were allowed to keep their children enrolled but at home without paying tuition until September.  We immediately instituted strict safety measures which included training the faculty on the new way we needed to run the school - masked and distanced.  We kept the communication with families steady and often included stakeholder surveys in our decision making processes.  By that fall over 90% of the Early Childhood families and 95% of the faculty, had returned to school.

 

The PEAK after school programs however were at the whim of the Portsmouth and Greenland Public Schools which had closed too, and our numbers dropped precipitously.  Entirely new schedules required that we create a daily morning program to teach classes and help serve parents.  Run at the Community Campus with the wonderful support of the Foundation for Seacoast Health, we kept each elementary school separated, and every child and faculty member safe.

 

Our sterling record of daily classes with no COVID19 lasted until December, when we finally had a positive case.  The long winter included a seemingly endless number of potential exposures to the virus with subsequent quarantines of faculty, parents, and children, but in the end only a handful of folks actually contracted it, and there was no general outbreak in any class.  This was in large part due to our vigilant adherence to following the rules and guidelines of the New Hampshire DHHS, the CDC in Atlanta, and of course Dr. Fauci himself!  Our good relationship with the Public Schools in Portsmouth allowed over 90% of our faculty and staff to be administered the first dose of the vaccine last weekend, and our move back toward normalcy took a giant step.  Everyone is looking forward to the time we can actually run like a normal school again.

 

Perhaps the most amazing part of our journey over the past year has been the experience of the children themselves.  Although some wore masks, most experienced every day in the classrooms just as normal, and without the drumbeat of the pandemic in the background.  Friends met every day, children explored new things, they laughed and played, and everyone learned to get along just as always.  SCS was a safe haven for every child in every class, and that was exactly what we strove to achieve.

 

My sincere thanks goes out to everyone who supported us over the past year - we really needed it!  We know that we are not fully out of the pandemic yet, but the light is on the horizon.  Special thanks to everyone who helped us reach our fundraising goals last year, and we sincerely hope you will help us again.  The altruism of our community, the resolve of our administration, the trust of our parents, the advice of our Board, and the sincere dedication of our faculty all combined to make it a year to remember. 

 

All the best,

Peter Gilmore

Executive Director

Seacoast Community School

PGilmore@Seacoastcommunityschool

 

Online Donations: http://seacoastcommunityschool.org/support-us