March 20, 2020
Dear Members of the Loomis Chaffee Community,
I write today with another COVID-19 response update from the school along with answers to a few of the questions from students and parents that I have heard.
I am finding it hard to keep track of time. Events are moving so quickly, and we are being forced to make significant decisions within a short period of time. And a decision made one day is quickly overtaken just a day or two later. That was certainly the case with our decisions about the spring term. We had started with just a two-week delay and within a matter of days realized that would not work. I remember talking to my Civil War class on the last day of winter term as to how they thought the situation with the virus would develop. We had all hoped that it would blow over—that what had happened in Asia and then Italy would not happen here in the U.S. That was not to be.
Clayton Dalton, an emergency medicine resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, provided this explanation about the exponential growth of the virus:
Why is it so difficult for us to appreciate the scale of what an unchecked global pandemic could do? The answer may have something to do with how difficult it is to intuitively understand abstract concepts like exponential growth.
This difficulty has been appreciated since at least 1256, when an Islamic scholar recorded what is known as the wheat and chessboard problem. The problem appears in a parable about the inventor of chess, whose king demands to purchase the new game. The inventor names his price, to be paid in wheat. He suggested that one grain of wheat should be placed on the first square of the chessboard, two grains on the second, and so on, with the sum doubling in this way over 64 squares. The king thinks this a great bargain and is stunned when his treasurer informs him that the sum would bankrupt the kingdom. The total number of grains comes to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615.
When students left for break on March 6, the United States had 148 identified cases of COVID-19; today, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are 15,219 cases with 201 people who have died, and a prediction of much worse to come. Most of our peer schools have made the same decision that we have about spring term, and we are all facing a new reality.
I have received a few inquiries about our decision to go to pass/fail this term rather than assigning grades. I feel strongly that this is the right decision. It removes one significant source of stress for our students; it allows students and faculty to focus on the learning experience; and it helps to level the playing field among what we expect will be a wide range of distant-learning experiences for our students. Faculty will continue to assess learning and provide continuous feedback to their students; they just won't record a final grade for the term. Many other schools have also made this decision for the same reasons. We have also heard from colleges and universities that many of them will be doing this and that they are understanding of our reasons for doing so.
On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week, faculty will meet virtually to complete final preparations for the start of classes. On Wednesday, advisors will check in with students; advisors will contact their advisees about the time and method for that contact next week. Then on Thursday, March 26, we will begin our first online classes.
Between now and then, and in fact throughout the term, please check your email regularly—at least once a day. Students will receive information about how to test their connection to the Zoom video conference service soon. The Daily Bulletin will resume publication on Tuesday evening, March 24, and the Parent eNews will resume publication on Thursday, March 26. As they have already begun to do, deans will be in regular contact with their classes. Furthermore, the school has created a COVID-19 Response webpage where we are placing all the information about the spring term that we have been sending, and will continue to send, to students and parents. The url is www.loomischaffee.org/coronavirus.
In addition to the emails I have been writing to our community, class deans wrote to students and parents yesterday and included information about move-out procedures. David Rion, director of college guidance, has been in touch with seniors and juniors, and I have been in contact with Trustees, Head's Council members, former Trustees, alumni, parents of alumni, and friends of the school.
I will write again next week and will see many of you virtually. In the meantime, please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns. Please continue to follow the recommendations of local, state, and federal agencies, including the CDC; practice social distancing; and do your part to serve the common good.
Stay healthy and safe, Sheila
The Loomis Chaffee School • 4 Batchelder Road • Windsor, CT 06095 • 860.687.6000
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