RS Blog & News

Dear Parents,

This email is announcing an important policy change. I hope you will read through my rationale, but if you need to cut to the chase you can scroll down to the dotted points below.

When you registered your child for Religious School over the summer, we were all in the midst of uncertainty. Schools were preparing to reopen while a new Covid variant - Delta - was spreading, and no one could say for certain what the health impacts would be on our children. In that context, we made the decision to hold all of our Jewish Studies classes outdoors, and to offer a choice of indoors or Zoom for Hebrew classes.

As the weather turns cold, we are looking around at current school practices and questioning whether it is necessary to subject our children and teachers to cold hands and shivers. Who can learn when your teeth are chattering?

Here is what we now know. Under the guidance of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the CDC, nearly all California schools have resumed near-normal operations. If your child is in middle-school, they are likely sitting in 4 or 5 different classrooms each day, with different sets of students. If your child is in lower school, they are sitting with the same set of students most of the day, but are likely exposed to other students for various special activities. Extra curricular activities have resumed indoors. 

Despite this return to near-normal student gatherings, the Bay Area is not seeing large outbreaks among students. You may have heard of one highly publicized outbreak in Marin, but this was at a private school that was not requiring adults to vaccinate and wear masks. We know now that, even with Delta, children are not big spreaders of the disease. In a community like ours in which all of our teachers and staff are vaccinated, we have extremely high vaccination rates overall (our surveys all suggest we are at over 90%), and when masks are worn indoors, Covid-19 transmission in schools is negligible.

We still would like to keep our children outside when we can do so without great hardship. But given the current situation in our region, we have decided that we will move classes indoors under the following circumstances and conditions:

• When the weather is nice, most classes will remain outdoors. Exceptions are the Wednesday Zayen class and Morah Riva's Hebrew class options.
• If it is very cold or rainy, the daily symptom check will include an announcement that all classes are moving inside. 
• If you prefer to keep your child at home for days that we meet inside, I would love to know that now. It will help our teachers to know what to expect. I am also happy to work with you and with your child's teacher to develop an individualized plan for indoor days.
• Masks will be worn at all times indoors, in accordance with CDPH guidelines. Please send your child with a well-fitted face mask
• Snack will be served outdoors, even in the rain. We have canopies.
• We will ensure that all classes meet in large spaces relative to the number of students. We will not be using our regular classrooms, except for small groups of students.
• In general, we are following the CDPH guidelines for k-12 schools. CBJ always has and always will remain well within county, state and federal health guidelines.

We are adopting this revised plan under the guidance of CBJs Covid Taskforce, and especially Dr. Sabrina Braham. Dr. Braham is a pediatrician and CBJ Religious School mother, and she has been a tremendous resource and guide throughout the pandemic. She is happy to answer any of our questions.

Please, please reach out to me with concerns, questions, appreciations or anything else. I apologize in advance that my email turn-around time is slow (remember the days when we all survived without email?), but I hope you know that I really care about each and every one of you, and I do eventually read every email. For timely questions and concerns only, either put "Timely" in your subject line, or text me. My cell phone number is always in my signature line.

The year has been off to a great start. I missed seeing so many of the children last year, and I love seeing them smile and hearing them call out the words of the shma every Monday and Wednesday. May it so continue.

Warmly,

Rabbi Ilana