Digital Learning Days Extended

March 23, 2020


 

 

Dear CCES Family:

I am grateful to you, our faculty, and students for their collective efforts to make the transition to a digital platform a success. Major transitions always entail difficult adjustments and some frustration. However, all parties in our reorientation of teaching and learning have approached the digital prospect with determination and a positive spirit. By all accounts, the same community that thrives on our campus is doing well on this adopted landscape. I commend the can-do attitude that everyone has brought to this transition.

Despite a remarkably smooth digital makeover, we would love nothing more than an immediate return to our familiar and secure school home, our CCES campus. Regrettably, such a deeply desired restoration of the customary routines and the physical presence of our beloved community is not yet prudent. CDC advisories and a consistent emphasis on home sheltering and an avoidance of mass gatherings dictate an extension of our adoption of the digital space through the Easter holiday, April 13. We will have a full day on Maundy Thursday and a break on Good Friday and Monday, the 13th. As much as the allure of a return tempts us, we cannot endanger our community and expose everyone to the unvanquished threat of the coronavirus. We must resist the temptation and rely on our discipline and duty to protect the health and well being of everyone in our CCES community and our local community in the Upstate. We have invested two weeks since March 16, as well as the training during the prior week, in making a successful transition. We are constantly refining our digital dexterity to create robust relationships and ready communication on that platform. In the next two weeks, we will continue to focus on parent connections and facilitating student-to-student interactions. Every day we see opportunities for improvement, just as we do in our normal setting. For the duration of our digital phase, we will aim toward optimal performance. With that commitment to building this virtual community while safeguarding the health of all, we need to stay with this acquired mode a while longer.

I feel compelled to inject an uncharacteristically personal note:  I desperately miss the wonderful human contact of our school. No question, we have made the virtual medium an effective instructional alternative. It sustains curricular flow, allows for intellectual stimulation, and preserves social discourse. However, it’s not the same as stepping into Joy Hughes’ classes and taking in the palpable exuberance, or chatting with a parent on the way to chapel, or talking with Josh, Marty, and James about the prospects of the Bronx Bombers (which are dimming by the day). We are stuck making the best of a terrible situation. To do so forces us to keep our distance. That’s just what we have to do.  

It is our hope to reunite our CCES family on our CCES campus as soon as it is safe to do so. Rest assured, when that cherished opportunity presents itself, we will seize it and return to the happy climes of Cavalier Drive. For now, let’s continue to build on the momentum of digital learning and apply our indomitable Cavalier spirit to making the most of distance learning.

We will work on refining our craft in our adopted regimen during this continuation and evaluate during the week of April 6 the feasibility of preserving the remaining time after Easter break on campus.
 

Go, Cavs!

Dr. Leonard Kupersmith
Head of School