School bells to ring at Wakefield Country Day, Belle Meade Montessori
‘It certainly helps that we’re smaller . . . fewer kids on our buses, fewer kids in the hallways’
Rappahannock News Staff
At two private schools in Rappahannock County, faculty and sta are preparing themselves to teach classes ve days a week starting Wednesday, Aug. 26.
John Glass, Head of Belle Meade Montessori School in Sperryville, said that students will wear masks any time they are in close proximity with one another, or indoors. “Looking at the adolescent Montessori method . . . we have to nd ways to work together and to work experientially and with project-based learning that still keep you together — but apart,” Glass said.
The Montessori method at Belle Meade means that teachers prioritize student agency, and Glass said it will be important to strike a balance between encouraging autonomy and ensuring that all students follow the guidelines.
“If I only have ve students in a classroom, it’s easy to maintain distance in theory,” Glass explained, “but because we’re looking at . . . choice, we really have to spend some time in the beginning saying: These covid precautions are part of taking care of each other in our community. There’s very much going to be an emphasis on, ‘We’re doing this because we care about other people.’”
Glass said classes will be held outside as much as possible, and faculty will continue to provide experiential education in small groups.
Only one Belle Meade faculty member has decided not to return to teaching because of concerns related to COVID-19, but overall Glass said faculty and sta are excited to get back to teaching in-person. And perhaps even more signi cant, new enrollments have lled the lower school to its 24-student capacity.
But while enrollments are up, so are expenses. “There is a lot more cleaning, and a lot more prep. There’s making sure that . . . you have everything that you need to go virtual [and] if we’re going anywhere we’re taking a lot more vehicles. There’s a whole laundry list of things like that. I’m not saying it’s a bad time nancially, but it isn’t a boon either,” Glass said.
Nearby, Patrick Finn wasted no time in his new role as Head of Wake eld Country Day School (WCDS) in Huntly. “I didn’t start until July 1, but I knew that I’d be the one implementing whatever [plan we developed]. So we got a group of faculty together in early May . . . that was devoted to reopening — if we could,” Finn said.
And, the committee concluded, they can. Students at WCDS have all agreed to wear masks on campus, and Finn said the school has more than enough space to ensure social distancing.
“It certainly helps that we’re smaller, that we have fewer kids on our campus, fewer kids on our buses, fewer kids in the hallways, fewer kids to manage . . . that’s a huge, huge factor in favor of all independent schools reopening,” Finn said.
Hearthstone School in Sperryville, which closed its campus on March 16 in response to COVID-19, has turned to distance learning for the 2020-2021 school year.
Compared with Belle Meade’s single student who has elected to participate in classes virtually, between 7 and 8 percent of WCDS students opted for online learning. But Finn said he was surprised by how low that number was.
“I honestly thought it was going to be closer to 20 percent because that’s what people were predicting over the summer,” he said. “I think we’re helped by the local area . . . not having a high number of cases . . . If we were blazing out of control with cases, I think that would be a di erent story.”
And what will Rappahannock’s independent schools do if they are confronted with a COVID-19 case? Both Finn and Glass gave similar answers.
“If there are three students or faculty from either the lower or the upper school that have tested positive we go back to Phase One, fully virtual,” Glass said of Belle Meade. “In the case that anybody does test positive everything closes until we have a full cleaning, and then students can come back based on another health screening either as you board the bus or come to the building.”
Finn said the plan at WCDS would be to “let the Rappahannock Department of Health know . . . . They would make a recommendation to us as to what we should do, and so we’re basically going to take our cue from the health department. Our response will be what they recommend.”