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Dear Students and Families,
We hope that you are taking care and staying healthy. We write today with an update on the following spring term topics:
- Weekly Schedule
- Student Life: Community neighborhoods, studying and socializing, dorm communities, day student squads, off-campus behavioral expectations
We will be in touch soon with updates on dining, athletics, social activities, registration, and packing. Please continue to access the Spring Term Q and A for ongoing updates.
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Weekly Schedule
Throughout the year we have responded to feedback and have made adjustments to the schedule to benefit student learning. Since most classes this spring will be in-person, we have heard some concerns about evening classes. The faculty has been in discussion about this topic, and last week made some changes that benefit both on-campus and remote students.
The most significant change moves evening classes (periods 7, 8 & 9) into the day. This will condense the academic day and free up the evening for most faculty and students. We believe this will lead to a healthier daily rhythm, better learning, and flexibility where needed.
The evening time bands will offer flexibility for remote students on the west coast and internationally. Remote West Coast students may take up to six courses within the evening times as well as 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. (ET). Remote international students could take up to six courses within the evening times as well as 8:15 a.m. - 10:20 a.m. (ET). While we will do our best to have students in these time bands, there may be exceptions. We will work with individual students, teachers and academic departments to determine final placements.
Many elements of the spring term schedule will remain the same as the winter term. Periods 1-6 will meet at approximately the same time. Each class will continue to meet twice a week for 55 minutes, and there will be a weekly third homework assignment. There will be an All-School Meeting, EBI period, and multiple advising and conference periods during the week.
The course selection process is done, and our scheduling officer, Ken Shows, is now building class rosters for each course. Although we will aim to maintain continuity between students and their teachers in year-long courses, this will be especially challenging for spring term with so much change. Similar to the start of the winter term, students will know their class schedule probably a day or two prior to the start of the spring term. A few things to note:
- There will be the usual add/drop period at the start of the term.
- Some teachers will receive accommodations and exceptions to teaching in-person and will teach remotely. Students may have some remote classes this term.
- Due to distancing protocols, many class rosters will have a total number of students that exceeds the classroom capacity (i.e. 14 students in a classroom that can safely have 12 students). In these cases, there will probably be a rotation of students who may be on campus but will be remote for some class periods.
- We will continue to maintain high standards of safety. This includes masking, safe distancing, hand washing, and disinfecting areas within the classroom at the start and end of each period.
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- Block A and B are unscheduled
- Evening classes and commitments are all remote
- There will be a schedule for lunchtime
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Student Life: Community Neighborhoods, Studying, and Socializing
As we plan for the spring, we are cognizant that our students need safe and healthy opportunities to connect with each other, make friends, and build community. We are thrilled that nearly 90 percent of our student population will be back on campus. Using the Non Sibi Safety Pledge to guide our behaviors on and off campus, we will maintain testing (at least twice weekly), daily symptom screening, masking, and physical distancing in all community spaces. If students are unable to abide by these behavioral expectations, they will need to access our program remotely.
We have created a model for the spring term that places juniors and lowers together in the Flagstaff, Pine Knoll, and upper Abbot neighborhoods and places uppers and seniors mostly in the Abbot and West Quad neighborhoods. We believe this model offers the most significant means of building community for boarders and day students, especially for younger students who have not spent much time on campus. Day students will have a home region on campus where they can socialize and easily befriend students from their class year, particularly as the weather gets warmer and the tents return. Our class deans and student activity team will be able to organize social events and gatherings in tents and open spaces near these neighborhoods.
In response to feedback that students preferred to spend time in a range of locations across campus with both day and boarding friends, we will open several different studying and socializing spaces. In the heart of campus, the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library will have daily signups for study carrels for all students. We will also have spaces in George Washington Hall, the Snyder Center, and Harrison Rink for studying and socializing. Yes! We will repurpose Harrison Rink to give students an additional large indoor area for socializing and studying. As soon as weather allows, we will reconstruct tents throughout campus, and we are hopeful that the town might allow us to heat several of these spaces! Very exciting developments.
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Student Life: Dorm Living
Our 9th and 10th-grade boarding students will reside in the large dorms in Flagstaff, Pine Knoll, and upper Abbot. The size of these dormitories will allow our youngest students, many of whom have had little to no time on campus together, an opportunity to connect with more of their peers. We are grateful to our student leaders who will serve as prefects in these dormitory spaces. Our 11th and 12th-grade boarding students will reside in the large dormitories in the Quads and Abbot and will have the opportunity to “stack” the smaller dormitories around campus.
All boarding students received a housing survey earlier this week inviting them to indicate a preference for a single or double and to list several peers with whom they would like to live. Uppers and seniors can request to live in a smaller dorm with a defined cohort of peers. We will house students mostly in doubles (one room, two-room, and three-room doubles) and a few triples. We will have a limited number of singles. Boarding students will go through an arrival quarantine in their opening 7-10 days on campus, after arriving and registering on Tuesday, March 23. Once we get through this opening stretch, boarding students will have fewer restrictions in their dormitory spaces; they will be permitted to engage with dorm-mates in their pod without masks and physical distancing. They will also be able to order food from local establishments through contactless food delivery.
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Student Life: Day Student Squads and Off Campus Behavioral Expectations
To ensure that day students have spaces on campus to store their belongings (and change if necessary), we will assign all day students to locker room areas according to day student “squads.” Day students will receive a survey inviting them to indicate several peers with whom they are connected and articulate needs and preferences for storing their belongings on campus. We will assign squads to locker room areas in George Washington Hall, Borden Gym, and the Snyder Center. We anticipate that student preferences will depend on their needs and activities. Some students may prefer the GW location closer to Graves, Tang, Steinbach, Elson, and the PKN tent, while others may prefer to store their belongings in Borden or Snyder, closer to the fields or courts.
In response to requests for more explicit guidelines, we have drafted the following expectations for day student off-campus behaviors. We hope these questions will help day students and their families as we all work to keep our campus community safe and healthy. As you are making decisions about how to spend time off campus, please ask yourselves:
- Is the gathering outdoors?
- Will all individuals be masked?
- Is it possible to be physically distant (more than six feet away from one another)?
- Are you joining a very small group?
- Is this gathering necessary or extremely important?
If you cannot confidently respond "Yes!" to all questions, the risk of COVID-19 transmission increases, and your choice creates vulnerability for our entire community.
As a reminder, all elements of the Non Sibi Safety Pledge apply to day students. In addition, risk-mitigating measures and guidelines include:
- Keep activities to low and moderate risk. No participation in high-risk activities, as stratified by local, state, and public health guidelines.
- Group size limited to 10 for indoors and 25 for outdoor activities and spacing between individuals of at least six feet for stationary activities.
- Proper ventilation is essential. Activities should be outdoors unless proper ventilation standards can be verified.
- Masking is required for all activities.
- Hand hygiene and equipment disinfection must be emphasized.
- Limit geographic movement within the local community and the state (except for NH commuters).
- Limit exposures with non-family members who are not following PA risk-mitigating protocols (including regular testing and daily symptom/risk screening).
- No carpooling (with individuals who are not part of our risk-mitigating protocols), no buses, no public transportation, no sleepovers with individuals outside of PA risk-mitigating protocols.
- Students may need to access campus remotely or stay out of off-campus activity if community COVID levels are high or local outbreak occurs, at Andover’s discretion.
- If a student would like to participate in an off-campus program or activity that follows these expectations as a day student, please see the exemption process to seek permission.
If you have questions or concerns specific to your needs, please reach out to your advisor point person and/or class dean. If you have general questions, email spring2021@andover.edu so that we can post responses online for the good of the community.
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In Closing Thank you for your continued engagement, creative ideas, and support. We have enjoyed the opportunity to problem-solve together. We are excited that so many of you will be able to learn, play, and engage with each other on campus very soon. Remote learners, we will continue to seek ways to stay connected with you in all aspects of PA life.
We will be in touch soon with more spring term updates.
Take care,
Jenny Elliott ’94, P’21,’23
Assistant Head of School for Residential Life and Dean of Students
Raj Mundra, P’18, ’20
Dean of Studies
Amy Patel, MD
Medical Director
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Phillips Academy
180 Main St.
Andover, MA 01810
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You received this message because you are a valued member of the Andover community. We are obligated to communicate with you, and require you to be on our email list while your student(s) attends Phillips Academy. For more information contact the Dean of Studies Office. |
© 2021
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