Stage Harbor Sailing School, Inc.

Chatham, Ma

June 30, 2020

Dear SHSS Families,
 
I am writing to share some new information ahead of our planned July 6 launch and to remind SHSS families about the mandatory parent orientation tomorrow, Wednesday, July 1 at 9:30 AM. Here is the Zoom link and dial-in info is below. https://zoom.us/j/6557828968 SHSS is part way through opening the club to prepare for its students and, after the long homebound spring, it is more exciting than ever to see things coming to life.

 
I wish we didn’t have to share some of the information that follows in this letter. While SHSS strongly believes the benefits of providing its students with their summer experience outweighs the challenges we face operating in this environment, the summer will not work without the buy-in and assistance of our families. I especially ask that families keep in mind that this is new to our fairly young staff and that you be helpful, understanding and supportive of them. Our staff have grown up in our program and they are outstanding sailors, but, like most of us, nothing has prepared them for this new normal.
 
Unfortunately, if we are not able to pull off the program by implementing successfully the core state requirements — daily at home health screening, physical distancing, reduced group sizes, face coverings, hand hygiene, no mixing of adults/children on site and a myriad of other requirements — we will have no choice but to close. We have an obligation to our employees, students and broader community to implement these measures well. And operating in this evolving and uncertain environment carries liability risk that we must minimize to ensure the long term viability of SHSS. Thank you in advance for your support, help, partnership....and, patience!
 
•    Waivers. Our insurance advisors have indicated a need for SHSS and SHYC to obtain COVID-related waivers from those who participate in Sailing School or visit the club. We have posted a new waiver on our website and you can access it through this link. COVID-19 Waiver Form Please complete the waiver before the start of Sailing School. There is an option to complete the waiver online as well as an option to print a PDF version of it that you can mail or email to us. In all cases, please ensure that each child in our program is identified on the waiver. We encourage you to complete the waiver now and check it off your list, as we unfortunately cannot allow students who don’t have one on file to start SHSS.
 
•    Vaccines & Medical Info. Please send us a copy of your child’s Certificate of Immunization. This is the standard form that most physicians use in their medical files to record your child’s vaccines. This is a new requirement of Massachusetts. You can mail these to us at Stage Harbor Sailing School, c/o Meservey Accountancy 104 Crowell Road, Chatham, MA 02633 or you can send us a PDF copy at [email protected]. If you have any medical questions or concerns, especially regarding immunocompromised or other medically vulnerable students or family members, please discuss them with your medical advisors and share any information deem important. While SHSS is implementing the protocols used by similar programs, risk remains and we urge careful consideration for those with unique circumstances.
 
•    Buffs/Face Coverings. SHSS will provide (free of charge) each student with one sailing buff to use as a face covering. Additional buffs can be purchased at https://www.shycmerch.com/ or from third party websites and we recommend that families have a supply on hand. Face coverings are necessary at all times while at SHSS and students may not start the day without one.
 
•    Daily Health Screening. SHSS is required to conduct DAILY health screens of all students  to check for COVID-19 symptoms and it will do this through a parent-completed online questionnaire that must be completed each day a student will be in class. To facilitate this, we will send you a link to a Google Form to be completed by a parent each and every morning a student attends SHSS. Please do this at home well BEFORE a student arrives at SHSS. We hope to roll out an automated texting solution that allows us to remind you about this. When we send the link (it will come in another communication), we suggest that families copy and paste it into a calendar reminder that lines up with their child’s sailing class schedule. Helpful hint: make sure you have a thermometer in Chatham! During the morning drop off procedure, Staff will check to see whether the health screening was completed and, for those students whose families didn’t complete the screening, we will have to ask the parent to leave the carpool line, complete the screening and then return to the Club. If a student has a symptom on the questionnaire, please do not bring him or her to SHSS, notify us of the absence and contact your physician to resolve the matter. Merely having a symptom does not require a COVID test unless your physician orders the test but we will need written clearance from a doctor before a student with one of the listed symptoms can attend.
 
•    Recent COVID-19 Contact. If your child or anyone in your household has been exposed to someone who is COVID-19 positive (either through a test or presumptive based on symptoms) in the 14 day period before the start of Sailing School, please let us know. Massachusetts has very specific requirements on this topic and we can discuss them with you. Please do not send a student to SHSS who has had any such exposure within the 14 day period before starting at SHSS.
 
•    Quarantine. If you are traveling to MA from out of state, MA currently (phase 2) requests that visitors quarantine for 14 days. This guideline is slated to expire when MA enters phase 3 which we hope will be on July 6 (our opening day). If MA does not enter phase 3 on July 6 and your child has not been in MA for 14 days, we ask that families please abide by the state’s quarantine guideline.
 
•    Drop Off & Pick Up Times. As a result of the requirement that we limit the number of people congregating at pick up and drop off, we will use staggered drop off and pick up times. For more specific information about your child’s drop off and pick up time, please see the information further down in this letter. If you have children in more than one class, you may drop both of them off at the same time. Sibling pick up for those in different classes will, however, be staggered by about 15 minutes to allow our instructors to get the students off the water, derigged and in cars without a crush of students congregating on the beach. In those cases, adults will need to pick up their first child, exit the carpool line, wait nearby and return. We wish this wasn’t what we have to do and we understand it will be a hassle for some but there are days when 30-40 children are arriving/departing SHSS and managing that number of people on site safely is a challenge without the staggering.
 
•    Drop Off & Pick Up Routine. This year, the center of our operations will not be at the main club house where drop off and pick up has taken place in past summers, but will instead be down below at the Sailing Center by car or bike. That is where all drop off and pick up will happen this summer and we ask that parents not park and walk children in. Massachusetts guidelines require a single point of entry and mandate that adults and children not mix on site which is why SHSS has moved to this approach. (If you need to talk to staff, please arrange to do so outside of the drop off/pick up routine.) Ahead of launch day, we will share with you a map (and maybe even a video tutorial!) that explains this visually. This process will take a bit longer than a typical drop off so families are advised to take that into account in their morning planning. This is how the process will work: families will queue up in cars along Champlain Road (in front of the main club house) and wind down the road toward the Town’s parking lot, where the Sailing Center sits. They will then enter the drive way of the Town parking lot, and pull forward toward the SHSS Sailing Center. There, they will be greeted by staff who will check the students in and accompany them on campus. We strongly suggest that families arrive at the queue so that they are headed in the right direction (approaching SHYC from the west with their car heading down the hill (east)) and avoid turning around on Champlain Road or in the driveways of our neighbors. Every parent who has struggled through a long carpool line has been tempted to short circuit the process by dropping off their child somewhere nearby or coming up with some sort of other creative solution to save time. Please resist the urge! If our families drop off along Champlain Road or in the Town parking lot, it poses a safety risk and is likely to upset our neighbors in ways that could jeopardize our operation.
 
•    Campus Closed to Adults During SHSS Hours. The Massachusetts guidelines do not allow us to have parents or other adults on site during sailing school hours and for that reason we ask parents to remain in their car during drop off and pick up and not to use the beach or Chief’s Pier to launch SUPs or private boats or to tie up. Please share this with everyone in your household. If you need to discuss something with our Program Director, please reach out to him by email to set up a time to talk by phone or Zoom. It will not be possible for staff to discuss issues during the drop off or pick up time. Feel free to send a note in with your child who can give it to our Program Director or a staff member if you need to share last minute information. If you need to get something to a child, there should be staff near the drop off/pick up entrance who can assist you. And, if you have a specific need to be onsite during SHSS hours that cannot be avoided, please coordinate with us ahead of time.
 
•    Club Closed Until July 6. As tempting as it is to stop by SHYC before opening day, we ask that families and students not do so this year. We need to keep the campus closed while staff prepare for sailing school. When staff are on site, please do not launch or use private boats or SUPs; use Chief’s Pier to drop off or pick up guests; or park on site. While SHSS is in session, please do not park on Club property. Please share this information with everyone in your household.
 
•    Biking to the Club. Our students can continue to bike to SHSS, but please ensure that a parent fills out the daily health screening and sends a buff each morning. If a student does not have health screening complete and arrives by bike, we cannot allow them on campus and will need to send them home.
 
•    Moving from Class to Class. The Massachusetts guidelines ask that we keep our class groups static through the summer. For that reason we will not be moving our students from one class to another when they pass through the shore school program. If, at the end of last summer, your child was about to pass into the next class or there are other reasons why it might make sense for your child to move ahead earlier, please contact our Program Director to sort this out before the season launches.
 
•    Physical Distancing. We know that physical distancing (a/k/a social distancing) is hard for all of us. It doesn’t come naturally. We also know that SHSS will be the first time that many students have interacted in a group setting where physical distancing is required. We will need your help explaining to your children why physical distancing is so important (stops the spread of germs) and what it actually looks like this summer at SHSS (hands to yourself, no touching instructors or fellow students, not standing in close groups). Our instructors are prepared to help with friendly reminders and visual cues and we have arranged our boats and meeting spaces to reinforce the message. In what we know will be the rare situation where a student isn’t able to comply with repeated physical distancing requests from his or her instructors, we will have to ask parents to pick up the student and have them remain at home until everyone is on the same page. Please know this is not something we want to do and it is not meant to be a penalty but something we are required to do to so that we comply with the guidelines and have the best chance of keeping our program open this summer. To kick start your conversations at home, we share this link to some resources on discussing physical distancing: https://www.munsonhealthcare.org/blog/explaining-social-distancing-to-kids.
 
•    Parent/Caregiver Contact Information and Unplanned Pick Ups. Please make sure that we have a way to get in touch with you or your caregiver at all times. If your child becomes sick during the day or the program needs to close, someone needs to be ready to pick up on quick notice. If you need to leave the Chatham area and do not have someone who can pick up with short notice, we suggest that you prepare a back up plan (and notify us of it) or keep your student home that day.
 
•    Communicating by Email. Our Program Director, Chris Beard, wants to hear from you and is available to help answer questions, trouble shoot or receive information you need to share with him. The best way to reach Chris is by email. If a topic is complicated or sensitive, we suggest that you email Chris and arrange a time to talk by phone or Zoom, as that is often much more efficient and accurate than lengthy back and forth emails. Unless a matter is urgent, we have asked Chris to do his best to respond to emails within 24-48 hours so that he can be focused on the daily operation of the program. We are all used to very quick responses but the number of communications Chris gets could have him sitting at a desk for hours many days when, instead, we need him on the beach or water with eyes on the staff and students. If he hasn’t gotten back to you within 48 hours, feel free to send him a reminder.
 
•    Unplanned Closings, Communication about COVID-19 Exposure & Testing. While we hope that SHSS remains open through the summer, we need to prepare families for the possibility of unplanned closings. If a student or staff member is exposed to someone with COVID-19 or they themselves test positive, SHSS will contact the local health department for guidance. Depending on the nature of the situation, we can anticipate that health officials may ask us to close while the extent of the exposure is explored and appropriate next steps determined. We will give you as much notice as we can, but suggest that families be prepared for this possible disruption. In the event of an exposure in our community, we will follow the advice of health officials and our own medical advisors in communicating with families. Confidentiality obligations will prevent us from sharing the names of staff or students who are exposed or test positive. For information on COVID-19 testing on Cape Cod, we suggest families go to this link.  Additionally, SHSS will close when weather prevents students from sailing safely or being on land in manageable numbers. As the weather in Chatham is unpredictable, we may not be able to give as much notice as we would like but we will do our best. If you wake up and the weather isn’t great, check your email often!
 
•    Private Lessons. We will share more information about private lessons in another communication, but, for now, want to let families know that our approach to private lessons will be different this summer. Part of this change stems from COVID-related requirements and part of this change stems from our desire to ensure that lessons are successful and safe. Our new approach is inline with that of our peer clubs. The new process will be managed by the Program Director (and not individual instructors) and will take place on specified days. If you would like to arrange a private lesson for your child, please reach out to Chris Beard and, once the system is up and running, he will talk with you about the best match for your child. We ask that families not contact our instructors directly for private instruction.
 
As much information as we’ve shared here and on our website, we can be certain that we have left something out or that something hasn’t been communicated as clearly as we might have intended! Most information regarding this summer’s class offerings, rates, dates and associated information and policies can be found on our website and we would especially direct you to the COVID-19 updates page on our website for the most up to date information. If, however, you have questions please reach out.
 
While this new normal might not be what we hoped for, I’m optimistic that our community will adjust in the first few days and that the challenges will pale in comparison to sun, sailing, and salt air and friendship.
 
Best,
 
David Leary
SHSS President