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Message to TCS families: December 23, 2020

Dear Parents and Guardians,

We look forward to a January return to learning, albeit to what will initially be an exclusively online platform, as dictated by the Provincial Government of Ontario. If you missed reading the communication that the School sent to families on December 21st regarding the recently announced provincewide shutdown, please click here.

We are pleased to be able to share some additional details with families today regarding the return to learning in January.

Request from boarding housemasters
Prompted by the mandated delay of in-person learning, in the past 36 hours, boarding families received an email from their child’s housemaster. In that email was a request to notify the housemaster by December 27th of your child’s return plans. Please do respond as quickly as possible as this information is required to inform our campus planning efforts such as those related to staffing, food services and programming. Thank you for your assistance.

Return to campus
At this time, Junior School students are set to arrive on campus for the resumption of in-person classes on Monday, January 11th. Similarly, Senior School day students are asked to plan to return to campus for in-person learning on Monday, January 25th. Boarding students are currently scheduled to return to campus on Sunday, January 24th (between 6:00-10:00 p.m. ET), however, in some cases, early returns of boarders (in advance of January 24th) will be permitted (as outlined immediately below).

Residences open January 4th to provide essential service
While the School must remain closed to on-campus, in-person learning for a period of time, the School’s supervised residences will be open to receive boarding students as early as January 4th should your family require this essential service. This is based on the necessity to house and care for young people who are far from home. Therefore, should your family require the return of your child into the School’s care between January 4th and January 23rd, please know that we will welcome your child back into their boarding house and will be providing a modified program that will include food, health services, cleaning and laundry services, access to online learning as well as some organized programming that ensures students are not entirely restricted to time spent alone in their rooms. Students will follow the daily schedule, attending their online classes from a supervised setting (not from their dorm rooms). Similarly, virtual co-curriculars may occur in an alternate location to one’s dorm room, and evening study will be located in a central supervised area. Wednesday afternoons, Friday evenings and weekends will include a limited number of opportunities for activity and engagement. Programming will be reviewed once we have identified who and when some students will require this essential service. Cohorts will be established to help ensure health concerns are mitigated and all health protocols, now very familiar to our students, will be maintained. (A reminder that all international travelers must quarantine for 14-days before arriving on the TCS campus.)

Ground travel to campus
Day bussing will resume for Junior School students on Monday, January 11th and Senior School day bussing with resume on Monday, January 25th, with normal schedules.

The boarder bus and Via Rail station bus originally scheduled to run on January 4th have been cancelled and will instead run on Sunday, January 24th following the same timetable. Families who requested a seat for their child on these buses will be automatically registered for the new date. Should you no longer require the transportation service you reserved, or you now wish to register for these buses, please contact your child’s housemaster and email the necessary information to traveloffice@tcs.on.ca. Click here to view the updated Boarding Bus Schedule.

Families who have reserved their return transportation via Airline Limousine will be required to notify their housemasters if they require a change to their reservations. Should any family need to add Airline Limousine services, please contact your housemaster as soon as you know your itinerary and email the necessary information to traveloffice@tcs.on.ca.

December Break international and domestic travelers
For students who have traveled outside of the province of Ontario over the December Break, a reminder of the following:

    • Domestic travel - The provincial government is currently recommending that inter-provincial travel (travel between provinces) “should be limited to only essential purposes” and “individuals and families who arrive or return to Ontario during the province-wide shutdown period should self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival.” Please note, this is not a government directive, but only a recommendation consistent with their stance on non-essential travel. The School recognizes that our students’ domestic travel over the break will most often pertain to essential travel (e.g. primary residence in another province or being hosted in a province other than Ontario), therefore, we will not be requiring a mandatory quarantine for out-of-province travelers. That said, we implore all TCS families to continue to take the utmost precautions such as limiting travel beyond your household and upholding health measures such as mask-wearing, hand hygiene and physical distancing. Most importantly, if your child has any symptom of illness (no matter how mild) or has been around a probable or confirmed case of COVID-19, they must not return to the TCS campus. 
    • International travel - While there has been some speculation that the provincial government would like to further implement international travel restrictions or protocols for those arriving at Toronto Pearson International Airport, please be reminded that Canada’s borders are overseen by the federal government and, currently, there are no such restrictions in place for our students. However, due to the fluid nature of the global pandemic, families are reminded to frequently check that their child’s travel plans have not been impacted.

All students move to online learning on January 5th
Senior School students will continue their Term 2 classes online as of January 5th. The academic office will be reaching out to students by January 2nd to provide specific directions on how to join their classes, to remind of online learning tips and expectations, to advise of synchronous and asynchronous offerings, and share news on virtual co-curricular offerings.

Junior School students will receive Google Meet links on January 4th which they will use to join online classes which will run January 5th-8th, with on-campus classes expected to recommence on January 11th.

All students and their families are reminded that the School’s Information Technology Services help desk encourages you to reach out should you have any changes with your laptop or experience connectivity challenges. You may email the IT help desk as follows: helpdesk@tcs.on.ca.

It is also worth noting that Senior School Parent-Teacher Meetings will continue as planned on January 12th and 13th.

Supports available
We recognize that news of a mandated move to online learning and a delay in the return to campus will be more difficult for some students than others, and may add to the continued toll of the pandemic on individuals’ wellbeing. Please be reminded that students are welcome to reach out to their guidance counsellor to book virtual appointments during the period of online learning. The following resources may also be helpful to you:

We want to reassure families that the School is committed to supporting students during the period of required online learning. As such, our current focus is on developing plans to open our residences to students who would otherwise not have a place to stay, and preparing to deliver a high calibre online learning program that serves all our students well.

Thank you for your patience as we work to finalize details through December. The School will email again should there be any further changes in circumstances. In the meantime, should you have an urgent question or concern, please reach out: info@tcs.on.ca.

Stuart Grainger
Headmaster