August 7, 2021 Letter from Lisl

Dear Athena Families,

We had a great first week of training, meetings, team-building, painting, power-washing, preparing environments, shoring up security, spreading mulch, and building fences! With the Austin Public Health announcement that our city is now in Stage 5, we moved all of our all-staff in-person gatherings back to Zoom, and are requiring masks at all times indoors. We spent time discussing and practicing how to ensure consistency and normalcy with mask wearing with our Primary students, how to maintain as clean and purified environments as possible, and how to maximize our time outdoors with the children. We know you all may have ongoing concerns and questions so we remain committed to regular communication and transparency with you as we enter this new school year. We will continue to listen to the advice of our public health consultant and the CDC, adjust our protocols and policies as needed, and will keep you posted. 

If you are coming to campus this week for your Open House and/or Soft Starts, please perform your family daily health screening before leaving home, plan to wear a mask at all times, and remember to bring a mask for your child(ren) if they are a Primary student. We will only have families in small groups inside the classrooms, and for short amounts of time. We are so looking forward to inviting you in to see the beautiful environments your guides have been working so hard to prepare for the children, and want you to feel welcome on our campus, all the while exercising the most caution possible for all of our community members during this challenging time for public health.  

Even though we have 100% compliance with vaccinations for our staff, we are asking all of our staff members to get a Covid test this week so that we know we are starting off the year Covid-free. We ask that you do the same for your child and family members so that as a community, we are doing everything we can to ensure a successful and healthy start to the new school year!

Resources:

Athena student-approved masks: Martex Health, Baily Blue, Happy Masks.

Covid Testing Resources: CVS, Austin Emergency Center, At-home tests available at HEB 

I have included again below the Covid-related modifications we are making to our regular protocols, as well as our revised Community Commitment, which outlines our expectations for our community members both at school and away from school. 
 
Feel free to reach out anytime, and thank you again for your continued trust in our ability to keep our community safe.

Warmly, 
Lisl Friday, Founder/Owner
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