The first day of school is quickly approaching, and we would like to share more details about how Westside Montessori School will maintain COVID-19 safety as we open for the school year. According to Public Health authorities, the new variants of the coronavirus (delta and lambda) have become increasingly significant. As a result, we have decided that WMS will retain many of the measures for in-person learning that were in place during the 2020-21 school year. We will remain ready to shift to more or less restrictive safety measures based on the course of the pandemic in the coming weeks and months. Read more about the essential measures in place by viewing our 2021 WMS Handbook COVID-19 Revision below:
WMS COVID-19 Staff Vaccination Requirement
The safety of our beloved community is paramount, and to continue our effort to safeguard the health of our students, families, faculty, staff, and vendors, we have implemented a vaccination requirement policy that was communicated to our employees on Thursday, September 30, 2021.
More information can be found in the 2021-2022 WMS COVID-19 Staff Vaccination Requirement Policy. Dr. David has also created a video explanation of the new policy that we encourage you to watch.
We appreciate your support and kindness during this challenging time. If you have any questions or concerns, we encourage you to reach out to us directly.
In an effort to provide detailed information and transparency to our community, we will continue to include pertinent information in our weekly newsletter that is emailed to our constituents every Sunday. The newsletter will include both the county-wide COVID-19 status and an internal status update of WMS cases, as well as resources from Harris County.
View the archive of the dedicated COVID-19 newsletter communications from 2020-2021 school year.
Westside Montessori continues to monitor the COVID-19 situation, and to protect our community as best we can, we adhere to the CDC Guidance for COVID-19 Prevention in K-12 Schools. We were requiring masking for students enrolled in Elementary through Middle School grade levels,” but the CDC recently updated their guidelines. They include the following:
“Due to the circulating and highly contagious Delta variant, CDC recommends universal indoor masking by all students (age 2 and older), staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.”
We understand that it is difficult to explain what is going on to our youngest community members and even more challenging to enforce full compliance for this new guideline. We are strongly encouraging that we all give our best effort to protect our community and we have found that what is practiced at home is more easily repeated in the school setting. We think this article from KidsHealth will help. We will also have masks at the front office in support of this effort if you need one for yourself or your child.
We greatly appreciate your help in supporting our ongoing efforts to safeguard our community during this challenging time.
Many of us are required to travel for business or will be traveling for long weekends or holiday vacations. We ask that those who travel inform the school of their travel so that we may provide appropriate guidance to help keep our community safe.
Please complete and submit the Travel Notification Form five days before you travel. The school will contact you on what steps to take before returning to campus.
You’ve got questions.
We’ve got answers!
Questions? We’re here to help. Please email or call 281.556.5970.