Latest Communication from Directors

Open House School Community,

We are all now entering uncharted waters. As times get harder we need to remember we are stronger than we may initially think. We each have individual strengths and resources that can help ourselves and others. Please remember that we as a school community still have so much to be thankful for.

As we trust you already know, all New York City public schools will be closed until at least April 20th. As such, we think that Open House will be closed for at least that long as well. While this is only one element of what we as individuals, a school community, and a city will have to figure out, for now at least we have a date to work with in terms of the school being closed.

Although the situation remains fluid, one of our thoughts is to extend the academic 2019-20 school year beyond June 5th. We know that this is not a perfect solution — in fact there is not a perfect solution — but it is on our list as an option.

We also have some ideas about how we can keep our Open House community together during the time we are physically closed. We will launch shared photo and video album streams for each classroom. The teaching staff will post short video clips and some photos through out the week. Families can also add photos, videos and comments to the album as well. We are working this out now and hope to have a version of it up and running this week.

As well, remember to keep us informed of any confirmed cases of, or medically ordered quarantines for, Covid-19 that may happening in your family.

Please reach out to us with your concerns or thoughts. We ask that you copy Eileen, Tom and Carey with your emails so the administrative team can understand what families are thinking. We may not be able to act on each individual concern, but we will do our very best to take everyone’s needs into account.

Times ahead will be harder than before, but as Eileen likes to say, “we can do hard things.” We must all remember to be even more generous, thoughtful and kind to ourselves and each other in the time ahead.

– Eileen, Tom, Carey and the Open House Team