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August 2021
Dear Andover students and families,
Happy Summer! We hope this note finds you and your loved ones healthy and safe.
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This correspondence includes:
- An enthusiastic welcome (back) to our students
- Heartfelt gratitude to our community members who worked tirelessly to keep us safe and healthy and kept school running
- A statement outlining Andover’s partnership with parents and guardians
- Information about the measures we will take to open the school year safely
- Clarity on where/when to access key information about cluster, advisor, and dorm assignments; support networks; Rosh Hashanah planning; packing information; important dates, FAQs, and more.
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Welcome (back)!
We cannot wait to warmly WELCOME all of you to campus in a few weeks. We are eager to meet our newest students IN PERSON, welcome back our returning students IN PERSON, and begin to celebrate our seniors IN PERSON! After nearly 18 months of disruption and separation, we are delighted to BE TOGETHER ON CAMPUS. We have learned essential lessons and added exciting tools to our toolkits for adapting, connecting, innovating, and supporting one another in remote and hybrid contexts. And we have never been clearer that the best part of an Andover experience is sharing this extraordinary campus with each other.
Gratitude
Responding to a wide range of needs and circumstances, our staff and faculty members embraced massive efforts and attended to tiny details to adjust and recreate nearly all their functions to promote student learning and growth. Our students endured disruption, loss, and isolation with courage, fortitude, and creativity. They found new ways to connect with peers, communicate their needs, show their care, and demonstrate their learning. Our families juggled new schedules, stressors, and responsibilities. They sought new ways for supporting their students’ growth and partnering with support teams on campus.
Thank you for your efforts to support and build a sense of community in the most trying and painful stretches. Thank you for finding ways to celebrate and support each other.
We approach this new year mindful of our varied experiences and attentive to our distinct needs. We will engage with each other with compassion, respect, and care. Thank you for choosing to be part of this community and for the many ways that you will enrich and strengthen it.
Reflecting and Looking Forward
As I reflected on the past year and look ahead to the year ahead, a couple of ideas and messages resonated profoundly with me this summer. Please view our website for ways to look ahead and prioritize building connections and relationships.
Andover's Partnership and Parents and Guardians
We hope to build connections with parents and guardians during your student’s time here at Andover. The growth and well-being of our young people is our common commitment. Our shared goal is that our students graduate from Andover as healthy, independent, engaged, and empathic individuals. Attached, please find our articulation of the values and principles that define our partnership in this endeavor. We understand that the past eighteen months have tested all of us in our capacities to care for and meet our high expectations of each other. As we embark on a new year that will no doubt continue to challenge us all, we thank you for your compassion, partnership, and support.
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Safety Measures for Opening of School
Monitoring closely the local, national, and international updates on COVID-19, we will continue to adjust our practices and protocols to keep our community safe. We are fortunate that the vast majority of our community members—faculty, staff, and students—are vaccinated. A cohort of students (approximately 3.5% of our students) who have been unable to access the vaccine will receive their vaccination as soon as they return to campus. About 1% of our students have requested and received a religious exemption.
We are awaiting health information from a significant number of students; it is difficult to make decisions without all of the information. For students who are not yet compliant, you will not receive cluster, housing, and advisor assignments until your health information is in. Please get your health forms and vaccination information submitted to Sykes ASAP!
Here are the measures we will take to mitigate risk and keep our community as safe as possible as we open the school year: :
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- Testing: A pre-arrival COVID-19 test is recommended. The Academy will test all students within their first 3–5 days on campus. In the opening two weeks of school, we plan to test students on 9/6 (for students who arrived 9/5 or earlier), 9/9, 9/13, and 9/16.
- Masking: We will require masking indoors for the opening weeks on campus. We will reassess our masking practices once we have more information and data. All guests must mask while on campus.
- Campus Patterns: We will eat outdoors, in tents, and in dormitories for the opening weeks of school; the Paresky Commons team will provide grab-and-go meals. We will keep our tents on the Greener Quad and the Gelb lawn for eating, studying, and socializing outdoors. We will allow contactless food delivery. We will hold off on any sort of dormitory visiting or hosting until we have more information. We will maintain fans in classroom spaces and dormitory rooms for increased ventilation.
- Vaccinated population: Vaccinated students may receive permission to travel off campus, compete in club athletics, and participate in off-campus commitments. If a vaccinated student is a close contact of a person who tests positive for COVID-19 and is asymptomatic, they will need to mask for 14 days and be tested on day 3, 4, or 5.
- Unvaccinated population: Unvaccinated students will be tested twice a week, will be strongly encouraged to mask, and will have travel restrictions (unvaccinated boarding students will need to remain on campus and avoid any kind of public transportation). If an unvaccinated student is a close contact of a person who tests positive for COVID-19, they will need to quarantine for 10 days and be tested on day 8.
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We will adjust these practices as safety conditions shift. We will offer regular health updates and maintain our COVID-19 dashboard of relevant data. For now, the Andover website is an excellent resource for keeping up to date. We appreciate your flexibility and support of our policies. Please expect an update as we get through the opening two weeks of school.
Information Resources
Many of you have reached out to ask:
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When will I find out about my cluster/advisor/housing assignment? This information will be emailed to every student (and copied to parents/guardians) the week of August 23. We are returning to the cluster system this year! Our boarding students will live in 9th/10th-grade and 11th/12th-grade dormitories throughout campus.
Support Networks? Every student has a core team of adults supporting their growth and progress. The core team for day students comprises the student’s point person (day student advisor) and cluster dean. The core team for boarding students comprises the student’s point person (primary house counselor), advisor, and cluster dean. Parents/guardians, your child’s point person is your go-to, primary point of communication. Students, parents, and guardians will have an opportunity to meet and connect with the student’s core team in the opening days of school. In addition, each student has a full team of adults, comprising the core team, instructors, and coach and/or activity supervisor. During orientation, new students will tour campus with student leaders to learn about and see the school’s many support resources, including the Sykes Wellness Center, Academic Skills Center, Oliver Wendell Holmes Library, CAMD office, and Brace Center for Gender Studies.
Rosh Hashanah Information The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, occurs on Tuesday, September 7, and Wednesday, September 8. Students who need to be excused from school registration, meetings, and activities on these days due to religious observance can be exempted by submitting a request through the Chaplaincy office by Wednesday, August 18. These students will be able to register on Monday, September 6.
Useful Information: Arrival dates/times, Packing, Important Dates, and FAQs Please check out the 2021–2022 page of our Andover website for packing information, move-in logistics, and FAQs. In addition, you can access The Hive for more personalized information from this page.
We will share relevant updates on our webpage about athletic policies, move-in logistics, etc.
One small(ish) and important reminder/update for boarding students: you cannot adhere/hang lights in dormitory spaces, as they cause significant damage to the paint. Please consider alternate ways to make your rooms feel festive and homey.
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Andover students and families, we are grateful that you are part of our community. We are eager to begin the 2021-2022 academic year. Enjoy your remaining weeks of summer and get psyched for the year ahead!
With gratitude and enthusiasm,
Jenny Karlen Elliott ’94, P’22, ’24 Assistant Head of School for Residential Life Dean of Students
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© 2021
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