COVID-19 Response Plan Update, Closure March 20 & 23

Dear Parent:

As you may know, Governor Walz held a press conference this morning. Here is a link if you missed it: https://kstp.com/coronavirus/full-press-conference-governor-walz-orders-all-minnesota-public-schools-close-temporarily-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak/5674738/.

He made several important points:

• All MN schools will be closed by no later than Wednesday, March 18 through Friday, March 27 for the purpose of planning around distance learning as a primary educational strategy that will be employed in the event of increased “community spread.”
• In order to ensure the healthcare and emergency workforce can continue working to contain COVID-19, childcare centers must remain available.
• We are finding our way in turbulent times, trying to be decisive in the moment as we understand the current context, and yet taking in new information at every turn. Decision-making is going to continue to be fluid.

Following are our decisions for the week ahead:

1) St. David’s Center is open, with business as usual, Monday through Thursday this week. With the Governor’s urging that childcare organizations stay open and with knowledge of the lower risk for children, we have decided to remain open the majority of the week. We will dedicate the next four days as a leadership team to further develop our course of action as the landscape continues to change for our country, for our workforce, and for each of you.

For parents of children in our Early Childhood Education Program, we are anticipating a reduction in our staff who have their own children at home as a result of the school closure this week. Because of DHS licensure requirements about teacher:child ratios, a reduction in staff requires additional planning. If you have the ability to keep your child(ren) at home with you or if you have access to short-term alternate care, we ask that you employ that option and inform Matt McNiff at mmcniff@stdavidscenter.org.

2) We will be closed Friday, March 20 and Monday, March 23 for further planning with staff teams and completion of any necessary steps toward solution implementation. On Friday, March 20 and Monday, March 23, we will close our sites and limit most home- and community-based services to meet with staff teams to talk through the solutions we’ve developed and to ensure staff have time to take any necessary steps prior to implementation of these solutions.

3) We will resume programming on Tuesday, March 24.

4) Communication. In addition to updates from me, you will also receive communication from program leadership or from your specific St. David’s Center staff member during the weeks to come and can count on our website for periodic alerts regarding programming.

Please continue to contact Jayson Palm at jpalm@stdavidscenter.org with any concerns or questions.

Thank you so much for your partnership,

Julie Sjordal, CEO, St. David’s Center for Child & Family Development