Dear Parents and Guardians,

As we look forward to having our wonderful staff and students back on campus, our planning for a safe and healthy school re-opening continues. While we recognize that some of our international students may not be able to join us in Port Hope for opening week due to travel restrictions, we are excited to reconnect with them through TCS Connect e-community and will be engaging them fully as important members of our community. Please read on to learn more about August opportunities aimed at getting TCS community members in a “back to school” state of mind, as well as the School’s plans for September and beyond.

(If you prefer, click here to read or print this communication as a PDF.)

Inviting All Parents: Back to School Webinars

Headmaster Welcome Back Webinar: Please mark your calendar and join me on Thursday, August 13th for a Zoom webinar aimed at welcoming both new and returning parents to TCS for the 2020-2021 school year. As parents dealing with so many changes and challenges over the last several months, I think it is important for us all to come together to remember that, while so much has changed, so much about the TCS community that we (and our children) love still exists! I will be hosting two sessions on August 13th, so plan to attend the one that best suits your schedule. Please register to attend by using the links below:

Thursday, August 13th Webinar
8:00 a.m. ET session – click here to register
2:00 p.m. ET session – click here to register

Back to School Webinars: The School will also be hosting four webinars during the week of August 17th to explore back-to-school protocol for Junior School parents (Grades 5-8) , Senior School day parents (Grades 9-12), domestic boarding parents, and international boarding parents. During these sessions, TCS’s academic and student life teams will be providing an overview of return to school plans and details, followed by a Q&A session. The sessions will be offered as outlined below – please save the date. You will receive an invitation next week.

Senior School Day Families: Monday, August 17th – 4:00-5:00 p.m. ET

International Boarding Families: Tuesday, August 18th – 8:00-9:00 a.m. ET

Domestic Boarding Families: Tuesday, August 18th – 4:00-5:00 p.m. ET

Junior School Families: Wednesday, August 19th – 4:00-5:00 p.m. ET

Health & Safety: Updated Provincial Guidance and Directives

As some of our families are aware given recent media coverage, the Hospital for Sick Children published updated considerations for a safe school reopening on July 29th. Health care experts from across the province contributed to this important guiding document. The Province of Ontario and Ministry of Education have also recently provided updated guidance to schools regarding re-opening. Given the release of these key guiding documents and directives, we are actively reviewing our protocols and plans for re-opening to provide a safe, healthy and supportive learning community for our students and staff. While in most cases our planning meets or exceeds the guidelines, we are committed to re-evaluating our plans regularly and adapting to current evidence, experience, public health requirements, and the contextual needs of our unique school environment.

Mask Update – The Province of Ontario now will require the use of non-medical or cloth masks indoors in school, including hallways and during classes by all staff and students. Parents are asked to encourage their children to practice wearing masks and learn what type of mask is most comfortable for them.

Cloth masks are currently required to enter any place of business in the Port Hope/Cobourg region. The School will provide each student with three non-medical cloth masks (added to student accounts as a cost-recovery charge) and recommend that students also have their own additional masks. The School will expect students to have a clean mask available at all times.

Long Weekends, Christmas and March Breaks

Long Weekends: While families of boarding students are asked to consider other opportunities for their child to take a break from campus such as spending time with their guardian, staying with a friend or local TCS family, or visiting with a parent if possible, the School will remain open on long weekends for boarding students unable to make other arrangements to be off-campus during these times. While on campus, TCS residential staff and faculty will supervise students, and participants will have the benefits of our housekeeping services, food services and health services. There will be some programming (expected to be mostly, if not exclusively, offered on-campus with appropriate health and safety protocols in place), recognizing the need for students to have a balance of rest, time to complete schoolwork and recreation.

This service will be available to families of boarding students at a subsidized cost of $750 CDN per long weekend. Families will have the option to register for this service when completing their child’s long weekend leave sheet through the REACH program. Your child’s house staff will be able to support you through that process when the time comes. The first long weekend break of the school year runs October 8th-12th. For more information, please contact Michelle Bishop (mbishop@tcs.on.ca) or click here to learn more about this year’s long weekend program.

Christmas Break and March Break: We continue to strongly encourage families of boarding students to look ahead and plan for their child to be in the care of their guardian, or to stay with a friend during these breaks. The School will work diligently with families to ensure all students have somewhere to go while the School is closed. We will work with local families, volunteer hosts and guardianship companies, as need be, to ensure that every boarding student is cared for.

Day Bussing Reminder

A reminder to day parents to watch your email tomorrow, August 7th, as the School will be sending out revised bussing registration forms to be completed by each family who wishes to register their child(ren) for bussing service for the 2020-2021 school year. (Families who had expressed an interest in exploring carpooling options with other families will be given access to that shared Google document tomorrow also.)

First Connect Sessions

A reminder to families that TCS First Connect sessions are now underway. First Connect is a program aimed at helping prepare TCS students for the new school year. First Connect is available to all students enrolled for the 2020-2021 academic year – at no additional cost.

Senior School: Both new and returning Senior School students are welcomed to sign up for individual sessions of their choosing. Visit the First Connect webpage for more information and to register for sessions taking place in August.

Junior School: All Junior School students are being asked to attend one or two (depending on whether they are new or returning students) First Connect sessions in September.

New Junior School Students
Junior School Orientation: Part I
Tuesday, September 1st – 9:00-10:00 a.m. ET

All Junior School Students
Junior School Orientation: Part II
Thursday, September 3rd – 9:00-10:00 a.m. ET

To register, use the registration link on the First Connect webpage.

Senior School Co-curricular Programming

We value the learning and strong sense of self that emerges from student engagement in co-curricular programming. Moreover, TCS is recognized for its vast array of co-curricular programming and is committed to continuing this tradition. As noted in previous communications, the School’s revised schedule for the 2020-2021 academic year includes time for co-curricular activities, chapel, house events and much of the programming that is familiar to students and essential to our core values.

In the interest of individual and community health, we must abide by directives from the Province of Ontario, local government and regional, provincial and federal health authorities. These directives include limiting large group gatherings, inter-school competition and other similar activities as we begin the academic year. We continue to re-imagine our co-curricular offerings in the short-term and look forward to resuming inter-school activities and competitive athletics when we are able to safely do so. We are blessed with a vast campus and will optimize the use of our outdoor spaces for our co-curricular programming and many student life events.

Given the latest guidance from the province and health authorities, the School may adjust co-curricular offerings to be grade-based for the beginning of the year.

Many of the offerings noted below will also be available to our students learning remotely through the TCS Connect e-community program. All students (on-campus and TCS Connect) will learn more about co-curricular offerings and “sign up” on September 12th.

Athletics
Competitive athletics: We cannot begin with any inter-school competition related to our traditional fall sports: boys football and soccer; girls basketball and field hockey; boys and girls hockey; and co-ed cross country running. That said, we value the camaraderie and relationship-building associated with team membership. Our initial approach will focus on sports training: individual and modified groups will work on skills and fitness within the physical distancing and health guidelines adopted by the School.

Activity for Life: Initially we will focus on groups offering personal fitness, yoga, self defense and outdoor games. Programming will limit the use of shared equipment and there will be a graduated opening of the School’s fitness spaces as students become well-versed in protocols. Personal fitness will have coaches monitoring individual programs for students. Our self defense groups and yoga participants will both move outdoors to focus on individual skills development. Our outdoor games option will include a variety of appropriate games including the use of the tennis courts, outdoor basketball surface, playing fields and beach volleyball courts.

CISAA inter-school sport: The Conference of Independent Schools Athletic Association continues to follow the emerging guidelines for the re-opening of schools and is actively planning for the possibility of school sports. As member schools are spread over many Ontario health regions and may be under differing health guidelines, it is unclear as to when the options for inter-school competition will become more tangible. CISAA is giving consideration to the possibility of offering some low-risk outdoor sports options, which may not be traditional fall sports, as health authorities permit. At first glance, sports such as golf, tennis, baseball, slow pitch and cross country running could be inter-school sport options should enough schools be able to participate. The initial goal would be participation by member schools without the concern of CISAA championships.

Service Learning
Service to others is an essential part of overall wellbeing for our students; a sense of purpose is central to our lives in the best of times. In the current context giving to others can be a source of courage, strength and resilience. It is important to continue the School’s partnership and momentum with our local community, and while the program will change given health and safety needs, there will still be opportunities for students to serve others built into the School’s schedule.

Several of our on-campus offerings support local community partners. Community restoration and environmental service opportunities, virtual work with seniors and children, and supporting animal shelters will be just some of the weekly offerings. Similarly, student leadership opportunities to enhance and develop programming will be available. Clubs, stewardships and various other initiatives will continue for our students. While the programs will need to be flexible and evolve from term to term, our students will be able to dedicate time to others through a range of service opportunities.

Co-curricular Arts
The School values, supports and recognizes the importance of the arts as a necessary and vital component of a student’s well-rounded education and journey of self-discovery. We will continue to provide an array of programming while adhering to the most current health-related protocols. Our current intention is to offer the following arts opportunities:

• Drumline
• Dance Troupe
• Digital and Social Media Branding
• Comedy Improv for the Camera
• Grade 12 Art Portfolio Building
• Pop Singing with Vocal Specialist

In addition, the School is currently planning arts options for drama, bell ringing, competitive debating and more.

The landscape continues to change and so our co-curricular programming will need to be flexible to accommodate any changing circumstances. That said, our intention is to engage our students as fully as possible in an array of challenging and creative pursuits aimed at the collective development of mind, body and spirit.

School Store, Bear Boutique & Uniforms (Orders/Exchanges/Returns/Gently-Used Items)

School Store – will be opening to TCS families on Monday, August 17th, by appointment only. Families are welcome to come to the store to pick up Top Marks uniform orders (for students without a Canadian address) or to browse for additional clothing and personal items. The store stocks Top Marks dress shirts and V-neck sweaters, as well as Junior School hoodies, jogging pants, uniform socks and leggings. A large selection of stationery, personal hygiene products, brand name apparel, sporting equipment and TCS spirit wear is also available.

The store’s hours of operation will be from 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday and appointments are required through August. In accordance with public health guidelines, we also require all visitors to be wearing a face mask before entering the School and throughout their visit, as well as to sanitize hands at both the school entrance and the store entrance. To make an appointment, please contact Store Manager, Lindy Wease, by phone at 905-885-3217 ext. 1256 or by email at lwease@tcs.on.ca.

Return or exchange of school uniform items ordered through Top Marks – returns or exchanges required on orders placed with Top Marks will be handled directly through the company. Each order includes a postage-paid return label to allow families to return items directly to Top Marks for refund or exchange. We anticipate inviting Top Marks to the TCS campus later in the school year and will update families once dates and times have been established.

Bear Boutique – will be open for gently-used clothing sales for two days in August: Wednesday, August 19th and Tuesday, August 25th from 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Visits are by appointment only and are 30 minutes in length (appointments will be spaced by 15 minutes). You may email the TCS Parents’ Guild at guild@tcs.on.ca if you wish to arrange an appointment. Please be assured that all gently-used clothing has been thoroughly washed/dry-cleaned prior to being made available for resale; returns of clothing purchased through the Bear Boutique will not be permitted this school year. The same health and safety requirements (as outlined above) regarding visits to the School Store, apply to visits to the Bear Boutique as well.

Opening Weeks of School for Grades 9-12

More information on what opening weeks will consist of in the Senior School, including details for students starting online via the TCS Connect e-community, will be emailed to families on Friday, August 14th by Head of Senior School Kristopher Churchill and Director of Admissions Kathy LaBranche. Opening Week events and activities, as always, are planned to foster relationships; to grow an understanding of community culture, routines and expectations; and to celebrate the beginning of each student’s journey, whether it is their first year at TCS or their eighth. While this year’s opening week activities may look a little different than past years’, the goals and spirit will be the same: meeting fellow students from around the globe, sharing new experiences and time-honoured traditions, getting to know faculty and staff, and making memories that will last a lifetime. Whether joining via TCS Connect or in-person, we are one community and we can’t wait to involve all our students!

School Re-opening Plans

With the large amounts of information being shared over the summer months, the School has re-imagined the “community health” webpage that is familiar to families and launched this past spring. The newly created webpage that takes its place is aimed at consolidating and presenting all the details that have been and will be shared about the School’s re-opening this fall in a format that we hope you will find easy to view and navigate. This webpage is intended to be parents’ key reference guide for TCS’s back to school plans: www.tcs.on.ca/reopening2020. Please bookmark this webpage; we will be updating it frequently so check back often.

I hope your family enjoys this final month of summer break and our students are looking forward to their return to school in a few weeks. Please do mark your calendars for our upcoming parent webinars and you can expect the next bi-weekly email communication regarding school re-opening to arrive on Thursday, August 20th. Until then, wishing you and your family all the best.

Sincerely,

Stuart Grainger
Headmaster