0:00
Welcome to Anna in the Air, under the sky, by the fire, and around Baltimore. Your daily podcast briefing of all the goings ons, ins and rounds, arts and ideas, Sudbury School.
0:11
So today is the last day of the week. It's farewell Friday.
0:18
Before I forget, there will be no farewell Friday next week because we are off on next Friday.
0:28
We are, though, in session the rest of the week.
0:35
Originally we were going to be off the whole week for spring break, but a school meeting decided because of the extended not-in-person period earlier in the year that we would just cancel that spring break.
0:48
But we kept a day because we like to have a day off at least once. At least one day off a month. I think that's nice.
0:57
Anyway, last night we had Assembly, and so kind of the title, not quite the title, the most important part of the meeting was passing the motion that we are just going to stay open from now on unless Assembly makes a different motion with regards to the metrics.
1:25
So we're just not going to pay attention to them.
1:28
I mean, we'll be monitoring them, and I'm sure we will let you know if they go crazy, and we'll call an Assembly meeting if we think some action needs to be taken, as we did last year.
1:39
We had nothing on the books about how to close, and so we called an Assembly meeting and did so.
1:47
But, yeah, so the argument was just simply the staff will be fully vaccinated. I mean, we all have had our second shot, the four staff in person.
2:02
And so, you know, by next Friday, three of us will be after that two week window after the second shot, and then the fourth will be a few more days later after that.
2:21
We'll be all fully vaccinated, so we should be all safe. And as for students, well, families can choose to keep their children home, so if it becomes dangerous, they can just do so.
2:36
We're keeping the hybrid thing, we're keeping all the tuition stuff all the same, nothing else has changed. It's just we will not close from in person.
2:44
There was some debate about it, whether it's a good idea to have anything that can close or not. Some talk of some kind of triggers.
2:58
I think the persuasive argument, though, is that we just have a very responsive democratic body that we can just call at any time if we feel the need to close down.
3:10
I think we're kind of in an uncertain territory, unlike before, where it really seemed kind of clear that like during the winter, if numbers did go up, we'd have to close.
3:21
Now it's a lot less clear because we have, you know, vaccines going on and it's warmer weather and all these things.
3:31
So also, just personally, I just can't imagine having to close down from in person again. That would just be so sad.
3:45
Yeah, let's see, other things we reported there was our finances are doing good. We got the first payroll protection program loan, totally forgiven, and we got granted the second loan.
4:01
So now that money is in our account and that should, you know, see us through the summer.
4:08
We also have paid our HVAC people for the boiler work. And once they cash that check, we can submit the paperwork to be reimbursed from the state for at least some of that work.
4:20
So, yeah, we're looking pretty good for all of those funds.
4:28
What else? Yeah, so the COVID numbers were high, but didn't follow the same pattern, the positivity rate really being high.
4:42
And so there isn't really any much coverage about it. So we're very confused about what's going on and what we, you know, whether to be worried about it.
4:52
I mean, the motion is now that we passed means we don't as a school have to worry about it. But of course, individually, we'd like to understand what's happening.
5:03
There is some evidence found of, you know, that maybe the city schools, for example, are back in session and they are having more testing going on, kind of broad testing.
5:19
So maybe they're finding cases and it's not actually indicative of that much more of a virus transmission.
5:29
We don't know. It didn't look like the testing volume had gone up, so that was confusing.
5:35
But again, yeah, it'd be really helpful to have some kind of report about what's going on instead of just silence.
5:42
I guess that's where we're at right now. Just silence. Admissions wise, we also reported on assembly and we're doing good.
5:51
We've got everything kind of, I think, going as we usually have, you know, maybe like 10 new students at the start of next year.
6:02
And given that there's a few more that might come in this year and, you know, where we are at. So thinking maybe starting next year with 70, 75 students and hopefully it'll be in person because that'd be nice.
6:15
And so if so, then then, you know, we're doing pretty good.
6:20
All right. That's enough of assembly today. We had J.C. I tried out having in the dining room because it was so cold today.
6:27
But because, you know, I was having a group of people in a room and some of them eat.
6:33
I had the windows wide open and so cold windows blew. My fingers were freezing.
6:39
But I was really impressed with our students. They all kind of, you know, really just sat there and took it and dealt with it.
6:47
And I appreciate that very much. So, yeah, cases were kind of interesting.
6:57
There was one about littering that we've had recently and it's kind of in connection with this candy store operation that's been going on.
7:05
And so we talked to the candy store people and they're kind of like, well, we're not the ones actually doing the littering.
7:10
And, you know, I mean, our rules don't suggest any responsibility on them. So that was that.
7:17
But hopefully they'll think about how that might go. Otherwise, there might be some new rules that we'll try to pass to deal with it.
7:25
Because we don't like little candy wrappers flying around in the field. We just really don't.
7:32
So whether it's about a better tracking of the ones who bought it, names on wrappers or you're just shutting it down.
7:40
I don't know. We'll see. Hopefully it'll just resolve itself and we won't have to figure out how to impose a regulatory structure on our candy store operations.
7:52
Our unofficial candy store, I should add. We, you know, I as a staff member and an adult, not terribly pleased with the idea of selling candy here at school.
8:06
But people are going to do what people are going to do. You know what I mean?
8:10
I'm definitely against creating black markets of stuff and all that.
8:16
Anyway, let's see. What else? Oh, yes. There was a needing case and there was a kind of a mess in a workshop case.
8:28
Both of those went fine. Oh, the candy store case was dropped eventually, but it was a nice conversation we had the other cases.
8:38
People agree they did it and actions were given. There was also a little bit of a birthday celebration.
8:47
We had a socially distanced cupcake handing out. Thank you, Party Corp.
8:52
Unfortunately, there was no happy birthday song because the individual did not want to be sung the happy birthday song, which I get.
9:02
But I don't I wouldn't want it sung to me, but I love singing dollars.
9:08
But I got to respect it. So, yeah, I was impressed with, you know, as usual, had it outside, you know, it was cold and everybody got a cupcake and everybody was responsible, socially distant.
9:20
I didn't see any cupcake wrappers floating around. So I was pretty excited about all that.
9:27
And, yeah, we have a fire going. I've been sitting in front of the fire right now for a while. It's fun.
9:39
And, yeah, I think that's all I have to say about that.
9:50
So I think this has been a good week. It's been cold and challenging. It really cemented in my mind the idea that, yeah, I'm glad we weren't open for in person during the winter.
10:01
It would have been very, very difficult and challenging. I think, you know, being outside comfortably and being able to have windows wide open, you know, is a really good thing.
10:12
And a day like today really proves how hard that would have been for months on end. But we do miss the times that it would have been.
10:23
I'm really looking forward to when we don't have to worry about any of this COVID social distancing stuff. That'll be really nice.
10:31
It does make me sad to, you know, see kids that want to be close together and, you know, they can't be. But hopefully soon we'll get rid of all of this stuff and can go back to being the kinds of humans that we like.
10:47
So goodbye this week of March. Again, next week. It'll be a short week, just four days, Monday through Thursday. And, yeah, I guess we'll see you when we see you.
11:03
Farewell. Fare thee well.