You'll need to get into this routine from the very start:
Wake up.
Get dressed.
Nourishment. Both for breakfast and preparing your lunch.
Prepare your chosen PPE (masks). Please bring at least two masks with you each day.
Take your temperature and certify you are symptom-free or have not had exposure to someone who has a positive Covid-19 diagnosis using the school-issued USN app, Magnus. More details about Magnus can be found here. When we are in the building, we'd like to have the screening completed by 7:15 A.M.
Make your way to campus IF you are symptom-free and do not have a temperature that exceeds 100.0 degrees.
If you have any of the symptoms outlined, please have your family report your absence to Mrs. Fulcher in the HS Office and check your Blackboard Course Pages for the day's instructions.
Coming into the building will look a bit different. We're asking that you plan to arrive at USN between 8:00 A.M. and 8:20 A.M. We want to make sure that lower and middle school students have a chance to make their way to their respective classrooms to begin the day.
As you make your way into the building, you will need to do two things straight away: secure your PPE in place and wash/sanitize your hands at one of the various sanitizing locations in the building. Please bring at least two masks with you each day.
Once you arrive at USN, you will need to report directly to your designated advisory classroom. If you have things you need to drop in your locker, please do so straight away and head to your advisory. Lockers have been assigned to you based on where your advisory will meet.
Please respect the directional signage around the hallways. USN will utilize a traffic-flow pattern that makes hallways a single direction.
USN will use a single direction traffic plan to minimize face-to-face exposure throughout the school. We're asking that you stay to one side of the staircase (as if you were driving) in the stairwells.
First and Third floor traffic will flow from the West Wing (Library) to the Gordon Wing. Second and Fourth Floor traffic will flow from Gordon Wing to the West Wing (Library).
Additionally, we ask that students move from one destination to the next without stopping to socialize in the high school. Teachers will be in the hallways to help monitor and ensure that you move from one classroom to the next.
All of our collective efforts are geared toward getting you into the classroom environment safely.
Once you enter the classroom, we ask that you maintain a proper social distance from other students and your teacher. 6 feet is the guideline that we are using based upon available public health data. The desks in each room are designed to maximize appropriate social distancing. Each room has been measured and has a capacity rating that is posted on the outside of the door. Please honor that.
While in the room, you will be required to keep your PPE on for the duration of the class.
Many of you have sought out and secured your coveted free period. It's a valuable part of the USN high school experience, as it gives you the chance to focus on work, socializing, or the various responsibilities you have that come with clubs, associations, and organizations of which you're a member.
Free periods will remain in your schedule, with a few caveats.
If you have a free period to start the day, feel free to use that period for extra rest. In fact, come in at the close of that period if at all possible and sign in at the office. This helps us reduce density on campus. We understand that advisory creates a bit of a challenge here. PLEASE let your advisor know if you have first period free and will not be attending advisory in person. Zoom will be utilized to make sure you are connected to programming.
If you have a free period at the end of the day, please sign out and make your way off campus. Again, this helps us reduce density on campus.
Free periods during the day will work differently, however, in terms of your movement around campus. Early in the year, as we get used to the socially-distanced systems and safely supporting 420 people in a relatively small building, we will ask you to check into a pre-assigned space for the duration of your free period. As we grow more accustomed to social distancing throughout the year, we will look at ways to create more mobility around campus and in more spaces.
Advisors will lead this sign up. We are in the process of finalizing the sign-up system now. You'll sign up for spaces on two-week intervals.
Lunch time will be one of the routines that will look most different in an era of Covid-19.
Typically, about 150 of you pass through the cafeteria either for grab and go or a full meal option. This year, given the exceptionally small nature of the cafeteria and our desire to keep the cross-over of students from different divisions to a minimum, we are asking that high school students bring their own lunch to school daily. We'll begin SAGE Lunch Service on October 20 upon return from Fall Break.
Just as with free periods, we will also ask that you eat lunch in a pre-assigned station on campus. Outdoor dining will be the name of the game, when we're able to do so. We will utilize high school classrooms, common spaces, the front lawn of USN, Magnolia Lawn (if available) and other outdoor spaces for lunch to help you have lunch with friends in a socially-distant manner. As masks and face shields are an impracticality while eating, maintaining a 6 foot distance from any other person during meal times will be imperative. We will also ask that you sit alongside friends as opposed to sitting across from friends. All desks will face the front of the classroom.
As we start the year, we're going to remove off-campus lunch privileges. We need to work out a system to have students re-screened upon entry to the building and we're building staffing for that over the summer. We're also trying to determine how that secondary screening system will work with subsequent checks.
For the time-being, we're going to suspend app-based food delivery. There are so many systems that we are creating and this is one we hope to be able to work into plans later in the year.
Lunch Supplies: You might want to think about purchasing a small pop-up chair. You can check out some things that we ourselves as faculty may buy here, here, here, and here.
Consider this year the year of minimalism.
As you think about the stuff of school -- books, laptop/tablets, supplies, personal effects -- ask yourself which are the essential items for the day. During the 2020-2021 year, lockers won't be available for you to use throughout the day, given the close proximity of one locker to another. We're assigning you a locker based upon your advisory meeting point so that you can drop off and pick up things when the time is right.
That said, please bring your backpacks and bags with you; take them to and from classes as you please. We anticipate less hallway traffic this year than in years past so leaving them outside the door of a classroom is perfectly fine.
For co-curriculars and athletics, we'll look for places for you to store your belongings. Stay tuned for more information about those locations.
Given the challenge of density in our building, we're asking that you plan to depart USN once your affairs are finished for the day. Specifically, if you can leave before 4:00 P.M., please do so. While we all love that the high school can function as our second hang-out or living room, this year requires us to have a more close watch on accounting for who is in the building and where.
The Health Room
The Health Room will be as important as ever this year. Please, at every turn, check into the health room if you develop any symptoms during the day.
Off-Campus Appointments
We know that many of you have off-campus appointments. We're asking that you try to schedule those appointments in the afternoon. The idea is for you to come to campus, stay, and then leave once finished. Going and coming back to campus creates challenges for the system.
Weekend Travel and Disclosure
As we start to think about moving into the school building, we're going to ask you to limit your travel where possible. Should you travel, it is incumbent upon you to think about the systems in use while you travel. Driving, for example, is a safer exercise than flying. Once at your destination, how will things be handled in terms of food and time? Are the places you travel to observing facial covering and social distancing? What's the public health data for your destination? All of these things you should take into account.
Your Social Interactions
Now's the time for you to really begin thinking about your social interactions. Let's all work together to limit our social interactions in large group gatherings with one another. Let's all work together to honor physical distancing and our public health mandates around face coverings and gatherings. It's time to take care of one another so we can get back into the building.