Better Than Ever

The health of everyone in our community is our primary concern, and it is crucial for all of us to do all we can to help limit transmission of COVID-19 and to keep our community safe.  As circumstances evolve, we will provide updates here.  If you have questions or concerns related to the TJ Community, please send a note to contact@tjeffschool.org.  Log in to the TJ Portal for all of your Back-to-School info, including our detailed reopening plan.  Check here for the latest official updates, and be sure you follow TJ on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

The administrative team – and faculty at every grade level – worked hard over the summer to finalize details of our plan to address student and teacher safety when we return.  We appreciate the support of our parent community for these modifications, and the flexibility it will require from everyone.  We published our detailed plan on the TJ Portal (Back-to-School page), and we are sharing this brief summary.  In addition to the standard Back-to-School forms, we are asking all members of our school community to embrace a new commitment – to keep our children, faculty, and staff safe. Parents and students: Please read and sign the Notice and Acknowledgement of Safety Measures (also located in the TJ Portal).

Highlights of our re-opening plan include:

1. We have made significant investments in our facilities and program that include building a well-stocked supply of personal protective equipment for students and teachers, additional touchless water bottle filling stations, upgrades to our HVAC system to allow more fresh air into the system and better filtering of viruses and other airborne contaminants (HEPA), enhanced nightly cleaning procedures using CDC-approved disinfectants, additional thermal scanners for fever detection, hand sanitizing stations at every entrance and in all classrooms, and additional computer hardware, software, and infrastructure to support our students and teachers. The school will also provide each student a Cavalier-themed face covering along with the back-to-school t-shirts this year.
2. Our health and safety measures include reduced classroom capacity to allow for physical distancing (roughly 36 sq. ft. per student), a cohort paradigm with smaller groups of students to minimize interaction and exposure among larger groups, a closed campus that protects students and faculty by not allowing visitors, homeroom assignments for all grades, a schedule that has the teachers rotating to classrooms so our students travel around the campus less, use of mouth and nose coverings while working on group activities or when facing each other, and dedicated entrances, hallways, restrooms, equipment, and supplies for each cohort.
3. While we plan to minimize exposure with the most updated technology, guidance, and information available, our plans also include specifics about hand hygiene, health monitoring and screening, limited sharing of supplies and spaces, and enhanced disinfecting of the campus. When there is potential coronavirus exposure within a small cohort of students, our plans address how we will contain that exposure through school-day and at-home quarantines, engage in remote instruction, perform contact tracing, and continue to monitor overall campus health.
4. We are committed to the important co- and extracurricular parts of our program including athletics, school-sponsored activities, performing arts, electives, physical education, and more. Our plan includes support for students to participate in all of our normal offerings. Athletics and activities are governed by MSHSAA, and as of this week, MSHSAA plans to support all athletics and activities starting with the fall season.