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Message to TCS families: February 12, 2021

Dear TCS Parents & Guardians,

The wave of changing protocols and timelines continues as the global community aims to mitigate risk related to COVID-19. We experienced this again, most recently as of yesterday, when Mr. Stephen Lecce, Ontario's Minister of Education announced the postponement of March Break for all public schools until April. Mr. Lecce stated, "In support of our collective efforts to keep schools safe, we are postponing March Break until April 12-16, 2021. This decision was made with the best advice of Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health and public health officials, including consultations with many local Medical Officers of Health.”

Citing the data and modeling specific to the virus, and the emergence of variant strains of COVID-19 in the province as the reasons for the deferment of March Break in public schools, during Mr. Lecce’s press conference, he very strongly suggested that all private schools in Ontario should also postpone their March Breaks until April 12th-16th.

Acknowledging that we all play a part in mitigating the spread of COVID-19, and following the advice of public health and the provincial government, TCS has determined that we must also postpone our March Break.

Recognizing that this will be disappointing for many of our students, families and staff, who may have set travel plans and/or are simply in need of a break, we are working to adjust our calendar in a way that helps support community and wellbeing. The revised calendar below includes: a new 3-day weekend in March; the postponement of the March Break to a “Spring Break” in April; and, for all Senior School students, the inclusion of a 4-day period of remote learning between Easter Break and Spring Break, at which time our Junior School students will attend classes on-campus. Please also note that the Senior School’s Speech Day, the Junior School Closing Ceremony and the end of the school year will come one week earlier.

Revised Academic Calendar

March 3-day Weekend *NEW*
Friday, March 12th - Sunday, March 14th
*Thursday, March 11th is a full academic day; campus remains open to boarders; boarders leaving campus to return by 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 14th; classes resume on Monday, March 15th. 

Easter Break
Thursday, April 1st - classes end at 2:15 p.m.
Monday, April 5th - last day of Easter Break

Online Remote Learning (Senior School only*)  *NEW*
Tuesday, April 6th - Friday, April 9th
*Junior School classes resume on-campus as usual. Junior School bussing available.

Spring Break *NEW*
Saturday, April 10th - break commences
Sunday, April 18th - boarders return by 10:00 p.m.
Monday, April 19th - on-campus classes resume 

Victoria Day Break
Thursday, May 20th - classes end at 2:15 p.m.
Monday, May 24th - boarders return by 10:00 p.m.
Tuesday, May 25th - classes resume

School Closing *NEW*
Thursday, June 10th – Junior School Closing Ceremony
Friday, June 11th – Senior School Closing Ceremony (Speech Day)

The School’s online Summer Academy dates remain unchanged from Monday, June 28th to Friday, July 23rd.

During the March 3-day weekend and the Victoria Day Break, the campus will remain open for boarding students. As the province gradually emerges from “lockdown” orders, with the School’s region expected to re-open on February 16th and with a return to the colour-coded provincial response framework, we expect to be able to better assess the implications for weekend leave for our boarding students. We look forward to sharing that information with our boarding families soon.

While we want them to do it safely by following all COVID-related protocols, we understand the need for our boarding students to be off-campus for a period of time. Therefore, the School will work with students unable to go home or go into the care of a guardian over the Easter/Spring Break to ensure they have somewhere to stay (for example, with a friend’s family or a TCS volunteer host), as we successfully did over the December Break and had originally planned for the March Break.

In an effort to communicate promptly, we appreciate that families will have more questions than are covered in this email, resulting from this unplanned change to the academic calendar, including the impacts on academic and co-curricular terms, academic reports, summative dates and other programming. We also recognize that these changes, whilst coming from a place of good intent, may add to feelings of uncertainty and stress in an already challenging year. Students will be reminded of support available through the School. In addition, the following resources are available to students and families:

Once again, we thank our students, parents and staff for their patience and understanding after this most recent change and commit to sharing more information as soon as it is available.
 

Stuart Grainger
Headmaster