COVID-19 Information

Per Governor Abbott’s directive on June 24th, parents will not be allowed to enter the facility.  Outlined below are the procedures for arriving at school each morning:

 

• The afternoon pickup time for full day students is between 3:00pm to 3:45pm
• Students will be released at the same locations as morning drop off:

• • • Primary 1, Primary 2, Toddler 1, and Toddler 4 – Front main school entrance
    • Primary 3 and Primary 4 – Back school entrance
    • Toddler 2 and Toddler 3 – Side gate entrance by the garden and side driveway
    • Mother’s Day Out – Back school entrance
• Families with siblings can pick up both students at the location for the younger child
• Families are requested to maintain a 6-foot physical distance while waiting for their child
• All adults must wear a face covering

Each classroom will be isolated as a pod and co-mingling of classes will be avoided for all activities.   Classrooms will be separated on the playground for recess, during Specials, and students will remain in their classroom for Before and After School Care.

 

Kindergarten students may meet as a group or be co-mingled for Technology and Science.  However, the classes will maintain appropriate social distancing. 

For the 2020 - 2021 school year, St. James is focused on maintaining lower classroom sizes and student to teacher ratios to provide additional space for social distancing.  Outlined below are the new minimum child to caregiver ratios as recommended by Texas Health and Human Services as of July 2, 2020. 

 

Age Group	Student to teacher ratio
18 to 23 months	7
2 years	8
3 years	10
4 years	10
5 years	10

St. James will provide all teachers, staff and students with reusable face shields which will be sanitized.   All teachers and staff will be required to wear a face covering.  Primary students will be encouraged to wear a face covering, but we will not force a child if they are resistant.  Parents are welcome to provide a face mask for their child to wear at school, if they prefer. 

Students will have their temperature taken at drop off, mid-morning, after lunch, and before After School Care.  Parents will be contacted if the student has a temperature that is 100.4 or above.   Teachers’ temperatures will also be checked upon arrival, mid-morning and after lunch. 

Childcare Licensing COVID procedures require we change a child’s clothes if they become soiled with bodily secretions.  Therefore, please plan to provide several changes of clothing for your student.  If you have a Toddler student that is teething, we may request that you provide several bibs so that we can keep the student clean.  In addition, students are not allowed to wear another child’s clothes; therefore, we can no longer borrow from a friend in the event of an accident.

• Clean the child
• Replace the diaper
• Wash child's hands
• Clean up diapering station
• Remove trash
• Wash hands

After diapering, the teacher will wash their hands and disinfect the diapering area.

All water fountains are covered and will not be available for use.  Please ensure that your child brings a clean fresh water bottle each day. 

All field trips are currently suspended. 

Celebrating holidays is such a magical event for every child, so we want to ensure we highlight the holidays.  Christmas and Valentine's Day will be celebrated in each classroom with a party and snacks, as normal, but Parents will not be invited to attend in-person.

We know that our students love to participate in Show and Tell and it is such a learning experience for them, but we are currently suspending the activity.  It is recommended by Childcare Licensing that we avoid activities that require the student to bring additional items from home. 

Full day Primary students older than 4 ½ will continue to participate in Art and Yoga.  Art will be taught in the Garden Cottage by class and the tables, chairs, and materials will be cleaned between classes. 

 

Yoga will be conducted as an outside activity, weather permitting.  St. James will also provide each student their own beach towel to use as a Yoga mat.  If the weather is not appropriate for this outside activity, the classes will attend in the Parish Hall. 

 

Kindergarten students will attend Technology class in the Garden Cottage and the equipment will be cleaned between classes. 

Full day Primary students younger than 4 ½ will be separated into four nap locations by classroom.  Nap mats for the students will be stored in the student's cubby instead of grouped together in the classroom or nap rooms.  If your student has a lovey for nap time, they are more than welcome to bring it school.  However we ask that you designate a "school only" lovey that remains in the classroom and is not transported back and forth each day.  Loveys will be stored in the nap mats in the student's cubby.  

Primary students will attend Chapel Service in the Church at 8:45am on Mondays and Wednesdays. The Primary classrooms will alternate attendance in the small Chapel so that only one classroom is present at a time.  The remaining classrooms will watch Chapel in their classrooms via a live stream video.  Primary 1 and Primary 3 will attend Chapel on Mondays and Primary 2 and Primary 4 will attend Chapel on Wednesdays.  Please see the school calendar for the specific Chapel dates for each classroom.

 

The monthly Eucharistic celebration remains cancelled. 

 

Only Kindergarten parents are welcome to attend Chapel Service and we request that you wear a face mask and maintain proper social distancing.

The teachers, students, and Reading Parents love the opportunity be a part of the Reading Parent program.  However, it will not be feasible to have Reading Parents through the fall semester.  We will reevaluate in the spring. 

St. James will continue to provide a mid-morning snack for all Toddler and Mother’s Day Out students.  The snacks will be individual servings for each student and all food preparation will be done with gloves.  There will be no “family style” snack in the classroom. 

Primary families will continue to provide snack for their student’s classroom based on the schedule communicated by the Lead Teacher.  St. James will be publishing a list of allowed snack items, so that we can focus on individual servings.  No “family style” snacks will be allowed.

St. James will continue to provide a snack for all After School Care students.  The snacks will be offered as individual servings and all food preparation will be done with gloves.  There will be no “family style” snack. 

Students will continue to eat lunch at a table with their friends with their own individual bento style lunch box.  The teachers will discourage sharing of items.  We also request that there not be any heat up items this year.

We know how everyone loves Pizza Friday!  Therefore, families will still have the option to sign up for Pizza Friday for their student.  All food handling and preparation will be done with gloves.   

To improve the air quality and cleanliness of the classrooms, each classroom will have a Medair-112 Air Purifier with ionization.

If your student is ill and cannot attend school, please contact the school office the first day of the absence.  If a student becomes ill during the day, they will be removed from the classroom.  The parents will be contacted, and we request that the student be picked up within 30 minutes.  The other students in the classroom will be transferred to another location (e.g. Parish Hall, etc.) and the room will immediately be sanitized. 

 

Ill students can return to the classroom when one of these conditions are met:

• The student is symptom free for 72 hours without the aid of medication, or
• The student is symptom free for 24 hours without the aid of medication and provides a medical professional’s note clearing the student for return based on a stated diagnosis (e.g. strep throat, etc.)

 

It is our hope that with the implementation of the preventative measures that we will significantly lower the potential for a positive COVID-19 case or the need to close a classroom/school.  In the event COVID-19 is confirmed in a student or staff member, St. James will perform the following:

• Contact the Dallas County Health Department and Texas Health and Human Services to report the presence of COVID-19 and follow any procedures or closures as mandated by the authorities
• Notify all St. James families of the positive confirmation and provide any information, if applicable of a classroom/school closure

Once again, the intent of the preventative measures is to minimize the impact of a COVID-19 positive confirmation.

 

Any student, teacher, or staff who are lab confirmed to have COVID-19, or are experiencing the symptoms of COVID-19 must stay home through the infection period and cannot return to St. James until the below conditions for re-entry have been met:

• At least three days (72 hours) have passed since recovery (resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medication),
• The individual has improvement in symptoms, and
• At least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared

If a member of your household tests positive for COVID-19, please contact the school office so that we can work with your family to determine the appropriate quarantine schedule for your specific situation.  However, outlined below are the general quarantine guidelines for a COVID-19 positive case within a St. James household (e.g. parent, sibling, etc.) as recommended by the CDC

• If the family member that has tested positive for COVID-19 is able to isolate and quarantine from all other family members until they meet the criteria to end home isolation,  the St. James student can return to school if they are not experiencing symptoms 14 days from the last day of contact with the infected individual
• If the family member that has tested positive for COVID-19 is NOT able to isolate and quarantine from the family, then the student can return to St. James 14 days AFTER the person who has tested positive for COVID-19 meets the criteria to end home isolation as follows:
  • 10 days since symptoms first appeared and
  • 24 hours with no fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and
  • Other symptoms of COVID-19 are improving

Please see the CDC website for more information on CDC Guidelines for Quarantine. 

•  

See the CDC Guidelines for Quarantine for more information.

If the student, teacher or staff experience symptoms, they must stay at home until the conditions outlined for COVID-19 above have been met.

 

Close contact is determined by the appropriate public health agency, but in general is defined as:

Either (a) or (b) defines close contact if it occurred during the infectious period of the case, defined as two days prior to symptom onset to 10 days after symptom onset.  In the case of asymptomatic individuals who are lab-confirmed with COVID-19, the infectious period is defined as two days prior to the confirming lab test and continuing for 10 days following the confirming lab test. 

Due to the extended arrival period (7:30am to 8:30am), Before School Care and all associated fees are currently suspended.  All students are welcome to arrive at any time between 7:30am and 8:30am.  Students will go directly to their classroom upon arrival.

 

So much of what makes St. James so special is our community of families and we want to continue to nurture this closeness through the pandemic.  At this point, we have chosen to postpone all our fall community events (e.g. Back to School Meeting, Halloween Dance, Grandparents Day,  Book Fair, Breakfast with Dad).  Our sincere hope is that we will be able to have these events, in some form, during the spring. 

 

Classroom Room Parents and Social Chairs are working to develop creative ways still come together as a community.  Please be on the lookout for information specific to your classroom. 

All scheduled parent education for the fall (e.g. Kindergarten Parent Meeting, 2nd Year Primary Parent Meeting, Toddler Potty Learning, etc.) will be conducted via Zoom conferencing.  In the event, we are able to meet in person due to the small size of the group; we will communicate this change directly to the parents impacted. 

Ensuring that our teachers are appropriately trained for the changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic is a top priority for St. James.  All teachers were required to attend the Special Considerations for Infection Control during COVID-19 class provided by Texas A&M AgrilLife.   In-service time will also be dedicated to reviewing and practicing the new St. James procedures.