Message from the President September 16, 2020
2020 ROC Cresting and Virus Mitigation.
September 16, 2020
Dear Parents/Guardians,
We look forward to welcoming you to campus on Friday, 9/18 for the ROC cresting/promotion ceremony. The weather forecast is looking favorable for us to continue with our plan to hold the event outside on Maginnis Field (football field), which provides plenty of space for social distancing. If a last minute weather change is required, we will move to the John L. Beaver Fieldhouse.
Friday marks the end of the 6x6 plan, through which, despite the hard work it took from cadets, teachers, TACs, and staff, we have accomplished our objective to maintain a virus-free “bubble” on campus. This was due in large part to our ability to secure reliable, rapid-response testing procedures for cadets and employees, which, when combined with our enhanced infirmary capabilities and isolation wing, would allow us to identify an outbreak early and limit spread. We have had no such outbreak.
To continue this mitigation, WE NEED YOUR HELP.
RMA’s pandemic health is only as strong as its weakest link. As you sign out cadets this Friday, cadets and parents will both be handed a single-sheet poster reminding cadets of the need to practice COVID-19 personal protection practices while at home. Your sons will want to visit with friends and family they haven’t seen in six weeks or more. They will want to attend larger gatherings. Our ongoing testing program currently indicates the virus is NOT present on campus. If you allow the boys their “meet socially with others” preferences this weekend, the odds are that one of them will come back to campus as “Patient Zero” as they begin an outbreak on campus, even though they may be without symptoms. Please, please enjoy your sons this weekend, but return them on Monday 9/21 to our RMA COVID-free campus bubble so that we can complete the semester in-person and to academic standards. Your willingness to limit their access to the virus is KEY to our future success. Remember that collectively, you delivered to us 100% COVID-free students (each tested twice!) back in August, and we have kept them that way allowing instruction to continue. I ask that you do it again, and again, and again until a vaccine and/or a reliable cure are available.
Looking ahead to the conclusion of the fall semester on November 22, several of you have requested some clarification/explanation for the long winter break and its relation to boarding and annual tuition. An analysis of this fall 2020 vs fall 2019 reveals that cadets will have available to them three (3) FEWER days to be home this fall semester as compared to last. The days at home this year have been consolidated to reduce coming and going and the subsequent risk of introducing the virus to the campus. Recall that we started earlier this year, made all but two weekends “CLOSED” weekends for cadet departures, and the accrediting agency reduced the number of days required for schools to be in session this year while still maintaining accreditation. The same analysis holds true for the tentative spring 2021 semester.
Some also inquired about our opening any additional weekends (Halloween) while still others are asking why we are not opening more weekends for cadets to travel. Of course, as indicated in our plan for the semester already shared with you, this is a dynamic situation. Many of you indicated you would not re-enroll your sons unless there were some opportunities for them to come home and/or opportunities for you to visit. Others wanted a total lock down for the entire period. So far, we have not had an outbreak and our plan for returning after the two weekend breaks is very similar to the plan that has yielded great success thus far. If results from this extended open weekend reveal pandemic challenges, we will adjust/tighten yet again.
I’m sure you can understand that with 300 families there are almost that many preferences. Often, even parents within the same family disagree on the preferred protocol, while cadets, faculty and staff each have their own preferences. Many have written to me proclaiming that this pandemic is a complete/total hoax that we are falling for, while others believe we are not taking it seriously enough. Since we cannot run 300+ different protocols, we have to run a dynamic program that attempts to meet the needs (and not always the desires) of the totality of parents rather than the individual parent, while concurrently ensuring we are meeting governmental and other regulatory agencies’ as well as my own moral requirement to provide for a safe, healthy, and secure educational environment. Note that I continue to believe that in-person education is, by far, the best educational environment though we must simultaneously ensure it is a healthy environment.
Hence, I firmly believe we are delivering what we espoused to you in our prior communications with an on-campus presence nearly identical to those of past years. Your sons continue to amaze me with their adherence to health and military standards as they progress through this ever-challenging school year. Please trust that we will continue to relax Corona-virus precautions as it becomes prudent to do so, but neither a day before nor a day after it is reasonably safe to do so.
As partners, we can make this year a remarkable success under challenging conditions to which other schools have succumbed. I thank you.
Respectfully,
Stas P.
President