Covid-19 Information

R-MA held Town Halls for all incoming families for the 2021-2022 school year. The Town Halls were led by General Wesley with Senior Staff and Covid Task Force members. Discussion points included R-MA steadfast resolve and key preparation to have yet another successful year of in-person, on-campus operations during the most unique of times. Key Points also included: 

• Recap of previous year
• Largest fundraising year ever in the history of R-MA
• 50 graduating seniors who received of $12.3 million in scholarships
• R-MA as the top AFJROTC Program in the Nation with 15 Service Academy Appointments in the last graduating class alone
• Covid Protocols as per CDC recommendations, K-12 Guidance from the VA Governor’s Office, high rates of vaccinations among R-MA Faculty & Staff
• Cleaning Protocol where all facilities are cleaned daily using approved EPA disinfectants and cleaning materials. Thorough cleaning procedures for classrooms, restrooms – all flat surfaces cleaned and disinfected along with door handles and desk-tops. School-owned buses and vans disinfected after each use. 
• Masks required indoors for all students; teachers will disinfect desks and common touch points during the day
• Athletics: Opportunities for a variety of levels; R-MA teams for both Upper and Middle Schools to compete with other schools following Covid protocols; intramural sports available. Thorough Covid-testing protocols for athletes and increased sanitization for locker rooms and athletic facilities; emphasis on hydration and hands-free water bottle fill-ups. 

R-MA’s Reopening Plan and the Yellow Jacket Emergency Fund

R-MA is pleased to have a safe and organized start to ON-CAMPUS instruction for the Fall 2020 Semester. Our preparation, commitment and resolve are stronger than ever under the leadership of our President, Brigadier General David C. Wesley, USAF, Retired.

General Wesley’s expertise has been much sought after during these unique times as evidenced in numerous interviews, including those with:

• WTOP’s Neal Augenstein: How Randolph-Macon Academy is prepping for in-person classes
• Enrollment Management Association’s Podcast: Fall Reopening: An In-Person Approach

R-MA is proud to provide you with our REOPENING PLAN for the 2020-21 Academic Year.  This document serves as a transparent, structured, and organized form of communication to keep our students, faculty, and staff safe. Our success continues to be in our ability to plan effectively and adapt – we are thrilled to see our Fall 2020 Enrollment grow knowing that families have entrusted us with a unique responsibility to provide the quintessential experience that is R-MA.

Yellow Jacket Emergency Fund

Please consider donating to our INSERT LINK Yellow Jacket Emergency Fund. We know that families are facing uncertain economic times, and students need a higher level of financial assistance this year.

Please feel free to reach out to R-MA’s Advancement Team for any questions. You can reach Christine Meyer, Director of Advancement at 540-636-5206 or cmeyer@rma.edu. Consider making a gift today!

Randolph-Macon Academy will host on-campus classes for the 2020-21 school year, beginning this August. We believe the central value of an R-MA education occurs on campus and results from personal interactions, and we are committed to returning to that boarding school culture. We invite you to submit your application today to become a member of this year’s student body!

Preparations have been made and are continuing to ensure the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff. Everyone on campus will be required to wear a mask and maintain safe physical distancing. Classroom configurations and hallway traffic will be adjusted to accommodate safe distancing. R-MA has an average of 9:1 student-to-teacher ratio and we are confident social distancing will be provided in all classrooms. 

Hygiene and personal responsibility will be emphasized in educational sessions. In addition to the deep cleaning regularly conducted, staff will also disinfect their rooms between classes. Hand sanitizer stations are located throughout the campus to supplement hand washing. 

These are only a few of the measures being put in place to enable our students to safely return to campus for this coming school year. The Admission Office will be happy to speak with prospective families about other safeguards being put into place; call 540-636-5484 or email admission@rma.edu.

Last night we released Class Night, recognizing our top students in academics and Air Force Junior ROTC. Join us today at 1:00 pm for the Middle School Promotion and Awards Ceremony, at 7:30 pm this evening for our Baccalaureatte Service, and tomorrow at 9:15 am for our Graduation Ceremony, all on our YouTube channel! We are proud to share our Class Night video. 

A Zoom meeting was held with current parents this evening, giving them an overview of the developing plans for the fall semester and addressing their questions. As the situation continues to change rapidly, all plans are preliminary at this point. However, General Wesley did emphasize that the intent of the administration is to hold on-campus classes for the fall semester, so long as we are permitted to do so by the Virginia governor. Staff members are creating policies to ensure the safety of all students, faculty, and staff up on the return to campus. Parents who missed the Zoom meeting may request access to a recording by emailing Christine Bennett at cbennett@rma.edu.

Our most prestigious athletic awards of the 2019-2020 school year were presented via YouTube Premiere this evening!

R-MA has returned from spring break and the new schedule is working well! Our dynamic teachers are continuing to engage students in this all-important sprint to the end of the school year, now only a month away. One fantastic benefit of the new schedule is that the teachers and students have more time to meet individually to work through questions.

We are moving forward with an online summer school, offering approximately a dozen new and repeat courses. Our experience this spring has set us up for success this summer! Our teachers are now well-versed in what works in online learning. In addition, our flight program has become a Hybrid Summer Flight Program, providing ground school online and individually scheduled flight lessons.

As we enter into the end of the year, we are beginning to host awards ceremonies in new ways. Our winter sports awards were announced via a community Zoom call. Our Air Force Junior ROTC awards were presented in a pre-recorded YouTube Premiere event! 

Wondering how online classes are going? We asked some of our teachers and parents for their viewpoints, and wove them into this article. 

As you may have heard, today Virginia Governor Ralph Northam directed that all K-12 schools would be closed through the end of the school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While we will not be returning to our physical campus in the coming weeks, our dedication to our students’ education remains unchanged. R-MA suspended on-campus instruction prior to the Governor’s order to close the schools. We stood up on-line instruction around the globe in less than a week, and those lessons will continue until the end of the current semester.  Our seniors will graduate on time with substantially the same subject matter knowledge originally scheduled for this academic year.  Our underclassmen will complete their studies on the originally set schedule, with minor variations to accommodate further direction from the Virginia Council for Private Education and the Virginia Association of Independent Schools, both of which serve as accrediting bodies for R-MA.  Our commitment to our students and their parents will be kept to the furthest extent possible, consistent with the safety of our teachers and staff.  We’ve done that for 128 years and, in spite of the current health crisis, we intend to deliver on that promise again this year.

A message from President, General Dave Wesley:

R-MA Update to Coronavirus (COVID-19) for March 17th

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope that you have received your student home safely or that they will arrive shortly. I want to take a moment to thank you all, not only for your trust in us, but for your patient, positive response in support of our transition to on-line learning. We know that there are many questions, concerns, and uncertainties while we, as a global society, navigate these uncharted waters. Please know that our first and foremost goal is to keep the R-MA Community as safe and healthy as possible.

Full-time classes will begin tomorrow, Wednesday, 18 March at 8:55am, Eastern Daylight Time, with 1st period and we will follow a “Monday” class schedule. Details for class times are posted in the OnSystem. In times like these, the true nature of our character is revealed. It is humbling to see the energy with which our faculty has taken on the challenge of teaching in a virtual world. Our decision, several years ago, to invest in a 1:1 technology plan is certainly paying off during this temporary move to a virtual classroom.

Our housekeeping staff continues to work diligently and will begin utilizing a Clorox 360 Ionizing Sanitation machine in all classrooms, dorm rooms, and offices, to ensure that our campus remains free of COVID-19 and ready to welcome our students back in the best way possible.

Our grounds crew is continuing its efforts to maintain and improve the landscape and our facilities maintenance crew is sanitizing our vehicles and making repairs, as needed around campus.

The key to succeeding in the days and weeks ahead will be communication. If your child experiences technical difficulties or needs to speak with a teacher or mentor on a given topic, please ensure we know the issue, so we can be timely and effective in responding. We will all have to demonstrate patience while we work out the challenges sure to present themselves in this new environment, and we look forward to welcoming our students back to campus as soon as conditions permit.

Warm regards and GO JACKETS!

-Dave

In the interest of safety and to do our part to slow the spread of COVID-19, all R-MA personnel will begin working remotely as of Friday, March 20th. At this time, the return to campus is anticipated to be April 19th. 

Please note that the campus is now closed to visitors. If you are interested in visiting the campus once this crisis has passed, please contact one of the following offices:

• Prospective students and families, email the Admission Office.
• Alumni and families, contact the Advancement Office.
• General community members, contact the Office of Communications.

You may also reach individual faculty and staff members via email. All offices will be operating remotely with personnel attending to on-campus duties intermittently as needed. In addition, our wordwide online classes will continue. Security officers and those who cannot complete duties from home will continue alternating work schedules on campus.  

For information regarding the Virginia cases or the coronavirus in general, please visit the Virginia Department of Health website or call the hotline at 1-877-ASK-VDH3.  

A message from Dean Tess Hegedus and Mr. Tony Ballard concerning online learning beginning March 18, 2020:

March 16, 2020

Dear Parents and Guardians,

CC: Faculty and Students

As we transition to remote, online learning, we can expect there will be many questions regarding assignments, assessments, communication, and expectations. Although this will be a new experience for many of us, our faculty and students are prepared to make this temporary transition to remote learning. Our students have been working on several online platforms since their arrival at R-MA in the fall and our faculty have had two years of formal training as we transitioned fully to 1:1. R-MA is uniquely positioned to be successful with remote learning.

What follows are some guidelines for parents and students as we get ready for our transition to remote classes on Wednesday, March 18th.

Schedule: We will run a regular (remote) class schedule. Students and faculty will adhere to our already determined class meeting times as they are posted in MySchoolApp, using an online learning approach. The first week, on Wednesday, March 18 we will run all 7 classes, starting with 1st period at 8:55 am. Thursday and Friday of that week we will alternate blocks on a schedule-1 rotation. The schedule will continue from there as posted on MySchoolApp.  Attendance will be taken at the beginning of class.  Kenesa Haffer and Melissa Grove will be running attendance reports and tracking absences as normal. Time zone differences will be taken into consideration.

Time Zone Differences: If students are not on Eastern Standard Time, they must communicate with their teachers so they are aware and can make adjustments to instructional delivery accordingly.

Assignments: Using the MySchoolApp system that students have been using all year, teachers will post upcoming assignments with a short description. The assigned date and due date will be available for students to track. Once students have used MySchoolApp to identify the assignment, they will be given instructions on how to submit the assignment for review, feedback, and grading. Faculty who regularly use additional learning management platforms, like Google or Apple Classroom or other web-based sites, will communicate expectations to their students directly.

Email and Announcements: Please be sure your child is checking their email and daily announcements regularly. This is the best way to stay on top of events and possible changes during the school week.

Balance of Work:  Faculty will keep in mind the load of work assigned for each class and balance that with any additional “homework” to ensure that students are not overly burdened in any particular class. Basically, what would be assigned under normal school conditions.

Accountability: Students will be held accountable for completed work each week. Faculty will establish weekly benchmarks/checkpoints to ensure student “classroom” compliance (in either independent modules or face-to-face sessions). We ask that parents/guardians also follow up at home to ensure compliance. Faculty will decide the balance of synchronous or asynchronous delivery but will hold a face-to-face (synchronous) meeting each class session on Google Meet. Attendance will be taken.

Tutorials: Faculty will be available during regularly scheduled tutorials and will use this time to “conference” with students in need via Google Meet. Students should email their teachers for an appointment.

Mentoring: We will continue with mentoring sessions beginning on Wednesday, 3/25 from 1:10-1:50 as per the regular schedule. Students will meet with their mentoring group via Google Meet. Mentors will remain in close contact with mentees each week to monitor their progress with remote learning and maintain accountability.

Voluntary Afternoon Activities: Students have the option to participate in extracurricular online activities offered by Faculty and Staff (for example, workouts, club meetings, etc.). We will post these extracurricular events and activities in the daily announcements as they become available.

Tech Support and Policies: While at home please treat the machine as if it were on campus. Keep the case on the device and protect it from spills. If there is a problem with your device, please email techsupport@rma.edu for help. If the device needs to be returned for repair, please reach out to the above email and we will set up the return instructions. Students are expected to continue to use best practices in web browsing and content. We can still monitor the devices and their history.

Please check your email and announcements regularly for updates. We strive to bring our students the best remote instruction possible under these unique circumstances. Thank you in advance for your faith and confidence in us.

Kind Regards,

Dean Hegedus & Principal Ballard

March 12, 2020
Given the rapidly evolving situation with the COVID-19 virus, Randolph-Macon Academy will be suspending on-campus classes at the end of the day on Friday, March 13 and asking students to depart campus beginning that afternoon. 

We understand this is not ideal. There are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our immediate area, but we are guided by several goals: protecting the health of our students, faculty, and staff, and to help slow the spread of the virus. 

During tomorrow’s class periods, we will be preparing students to move to a virtual learning environment. Beginning Wednesday, March 18, we start our classes online through April 9th, when the spring break begins. 

The timeline below coordinates staff and student actions for their transition home.

March 13, 2020

• Faculty virtual learning environment training/planning 8:00-9:00am;
• Classes will follow with all seven classes meeting for 30 minute periods with faculty instruction on virtual learning.
• Students may begin leaving following the last class at 2:00pm.

March 14, 2020

• Proceed with SAT administration; families can decide whether to cancel or reschedule their testing.

Saturday, March 15

• Students continue to depart campus.

Monday, March 16 – Tuesday, March 17

• Monday and Tuesday will be teacher work days for faculty to prepare for remote learning and for students to transition back home.

March 18, 2020: 

• Transition fully to online learning following regular class schedule on the current rotation.

March 22, 2020
Open House 2-4 pm as currently scheduled, but may move to a virtual platform as necessary. This is the best option for our community as well as individual students at this time.

Those who were interested in their student remaining on campus for spring break will need to plan on their student staying off-campus in the arrangements made for this duration.

No school-sponsored events will be held on or off campus. If possible, we will make up internal events.

At this time, the following major events on our schedule have been cancelled:

• Parade Unit’s Florida Trip
• Drill Team’s Trip to AFJROTC National Drill Meet in Ohio
• New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade
• Leadership Symposium and Tech Pilots Day at Middle School (both March 28th)

As we continue to monitor the situation off campus, virtual learning may last longer as needed for the safety of our students and employees. While students are able to leave things in their rooms, you should be prepared for the long haul and bring things home that would enable virtual learning, particularly your Macbook and charger.

A structured, healthy routine including physical activity would be advised.  This will be helpful when campus operations resume.

We will keep you aware as the situation evolves and new information is received. We aspire to return to full-time, in-residence operations as soon as it is safe and practical to do so. Please continue to check this page for updates.

For questions regarding the Virginia cases or general coronavirus questions, please contact: Virginia Department of Health hotline: 1-877-ASK-VDH3.  For the latest public health updates go to: http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/surveillance-and-investigation/novel-coronavirus/.

A Message from General Wesley, President

David C. Wesley
Brigadier General, USAF, Retired
President

For all students, parents, faculty, and staff of Randolph-Macon Academy:

This afternoon, the Governor of Virginia closed public and private school campuses for the remainder of the Academic Year. Our staff and faculty have reduced their presence on campus for our own safety and in order to comply with the Governor’s direction; we’re operating from our homes whenever possible, but we’re ready to respond to your questions and support you in any way we can.

The Governor’s order does not apply to the online classes we began last week and it will not prevent our students from completing their studies for their current grade, if they meet each teacher’s requirements for the classes they are taking.

I write simply to reassure you that, in spite of recent events, we remain committed to completing the school year in the most effective way possible. An Academic Year is not actually a pre-set number of hours in the classroom or a number of days the school is in session. In very real ways, it is a measure of the learning each student obtains toward the ultimate goal. For R-MA students, that goal has long been completion of a college degree and success in the life beyond.

That goal has not changed in this most unusual of years. We intend to press forward as we have for the past week, offering our students a full schedule of classes online, delivering Mentoring and Chapel and physical training for our students, so they can continue to grow.

We fully appreciate this is harder for students to accomplish at a distance…just as it is harder for our teachers, mentors, and coaches to deliver, but: WE. WILL. GET. THERE…TOGETHER!

I will have more to say on this in the coming days, but for now: we press on with classes…do your best…every day!

For our seniors: I pledge to you that, to the degree physically possible, we will deliver to you the best graduation ceremony R-MA has ever put on…just as soon as we can!

The Power of Rise did not begin this year…in so many ways, it has been with us since 1892 and, thanks to your efforts, it will endure long after you and I have other responsibilities. For today, it is your duty and mine to dig deep, to deliver our best, and to Rise in every way we can. Let’s get it done!

More soon,

DCW

As you may have heard, today Virginia Governor Ralph Northam directed that all K-12 schools would be closed through the end of the school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While we will not be returning to our physical campus in the coming weeks, our dedication to our students’ education remains unchanged. R-MA suspended on-campus instruction prior to the Governor’s order to close the schools. We stood up on-line instruction around the globe in less than a week, and those lessons will continue until the end of the current semester.  Our seniors will graduate on time with substantially the same subject matter knowledge originally scheduled for this academic year.  Our underclassmen will complete their studies on the originally set schedule, with minor variations to accommodate further direction from the Virginia Council for Private Education and the Virginia Association of Independent Schools, both of which serve as accrediting bodies for R-MA.  Our commitment to our students and their parents will be kept to the furthest extent possible, consistent with the safety of our teachers and staff.  We’ve done that for 128 years and, in spite of the current health crisis, we intend to deliver on that promise again this year.

In the interest of safety and to do our part to slow the spread of COVID-19, all R-MA personnel will begin working remotely as of Friday, March 20th. At this time, the return to campus is anticipated to be April 19th.

Please note that the campus is now closed to visitors. If you are interested in visiting the campus once this crisis has passed, please contact one of the following offices:

• Prospective students and families, email the Admission Office.
• Alumni and families, contact the Advancement Office.
• General community members, contact the Office of Communications.

You may also reach individual faculty and staff members via email. All offices will be operating remotely with personnel attending to on-campus duties intermittently as needed. In addition, our wordwide online classes will continue. Security officers and those who cannot complete duties from home will continue alternating work schedules on campus.

For information regarding the Virginia cases or the coronavirus in general, please visit the Virginia Department of Health website or call the hotline at 1-877-ASK-VDH3.

A Message from General Wesley, President

R-MA Update to Coronavirus (COVID-19) for March 17th

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope that you have received your student home safely or that they will arrive shortly. I want to take a moment to thank you all, not only for your trust in us, but for your patient, positive response in support of our transition to on-line learning.

We know that there are many questions, concerns, and uncertainties while we, as a global society, navigate these uncharted waters. Please know that our first and foremost goal is to keep the R-MA Community as safe and healthy as possible.

Full-time classes will begin tomorrow, Wednesday, 18 March at 8:55am, Eastern Daylight Time, with 1st period and we will follow a “Monday” class schedule. Details for class times are posted in the OnSystem. In times like these, the true nature of our character is revealed. It is humbling to see the energy with which our faculty has taken on the challenge of teaching in a virtual world. Our decision, several years ago, to invest in a 1:1 technology plan is certainly paying off during this temporary move to a virtual classroom.

Our housekeeping staff continues to work diligently and will begin utilizing a Clorox 360 Ionizing Sanitation machine in all classrooms, dorm rooms, and offices, to ensure that our campus remains free of COVID-19 and ready to welcome our students back in the best way possible.

Our grounds crew is continuing its efforts to maintain and improve the landscape and our facilities maintenance crew is sanitizing our vehicles and making repairs, as needed around campus.

The key to succeeding in the days and weeks ahead will be communication. If your child experiences technical difficulties or needs to speak with a teacher or mentor on a given topic, please ensure we know the issue, so we can be timely and effective in responding. We will all have to demonstrate patience while we work out the challenges sure to present themselves in this new environment, and we look forward to welcoming our students back to campus as soon as conditions permit.

Warm regards and GO JACKETS!

Dave

A message from the Dean of Upper School Academics and Middle School Principal

March 16, 2020

Dear Parents and Guardians,

CC: Faculty and Students

As we transition to remote, online learning, we can expect there will be many questions regarding assignments, assessments, communication, and expectations. Although this will be a new experience for many of us, our faculty and students are prepared to make this temporary transition to remote learning. Our students have been working on several online platforms since their arrival at R-MA in the fall and our faculty have had two years of formal training as we transitioned fully to 1:1. R-MA is uniquely positioned to be successful with remote learning.

What follows are some guidelines for parents and students as we get ready for our transition to remote classes on Wednesday, March 18th.

Schedule: We will run a regular (remote) class schedule. Students and faculty will adhere to our already determined class meeting times as they are posted in MySchoolApp, using an online learning approach. The first week, on Wednesday, March 18 we will run all 7 classes, starting with 1st period at 8:55 am. Thursday and Friday of that week we will alternate blocks on a schedule-1 rotation. The schedule will continue from there as posted on MySchoolApp.  Attendance will be taken at the beginning of class.  Kenesa Haffer and Melissa Grove will be running attendance reports and tracking absences as normal. Time zone differences will be taken into consideration.

Time Zone Differences: If students are not on Eastern Standard Time, they must communicate with their teachers so they are aware and can make adjustments to instructional delivery accordingly.

Assignments: Using the MySchoolApp system that students have been using all year, teachers will post upcoming assignments with a short description. The assigned date and due date will be available for students to track. Once students have used MySchoolApp to identify the assignment, they will be given instructions on how to submit the assignment for review, feedback, and grading. Faculty who regularly use additional learning management platforms, like Google or Apple Classroom or other web-based sites, will communicate expectations to their students directly.

Email and Announcements: Please be sure your child is checking their email and daily announcements regularly. This is the best way to stay on top of events and possible changes during the school week.

Balance of Work:  Faculty will keep in mind the load of work assigned for each class and balance that with any additional “homework” to ensure that students are not overly burdened in any particular class. Basically, what would be assigned under normal school conditions.

Accountability: Students will be held accountable for completed work each week. Faculty will establish weekly benchmarks/checkpoints to ensure student “classroom” compliance (in either independent modules or face-to-face sessions). We ask that parents/guardians also follow up at home to ensure compliance. Faculty will decide the balance of synchronous or asynchronous delivery but will hold a face-to-face (synchronous) meeting each class session on Google Meet. Attendance will be taken.

Tutorials: Faculty will be available during regularly scheduled tutorials and will use this time to “conference” with students in need via Google Meet. Students should email their teachers for an appointment.

Mentoring: We will continue with mentoring sessions beginning on Wednesday, 3/25 from 1:10-1:50 as per the regular schedule. Students will meet with their mentoring group via Google Meet. Mentors will remain in close contact with mentees each week to monitor their progress with remote learning and maintain accountability.

Voluntary Afternoon Activities: Students have the option to participate in extracurricular online activities offered by Faculty and Staff (for example, workouts, club meetings, etc.). We will post these extracurricular events and activities in the daily announcements as they become available.

Tech Support and Policies: While at home please treat the machine as if it were on campus. Keep the case on the device and protect it from spills. If there is a problem with your device, please email techsupport@rma.edu for help. If the device needs to be returned for repair, please reach out to the above email and we will set up the return instructions. Students are expected to continue to use best practices in web browsing and content. We can still monitor the devices and their history.

Please check your email and announcements regularly for updates. We strive to bring our students the best remote instruction possible under these unique circumstances. Thank you in advance for your faith and confidence in us.

Kind Regards,

Dean Hegedus & Principal Ballard

Given the rapidly evolving situation with the COVID-19 virus, Randolph-Macon Academy will be suspending on-campus classes at the end of the day on Friday, March 13 and asking students to depart campus beginning that afternoon.

We understand this is not ideal. There are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our immediate area, but we are guided by several goals: protecting the health of our students, faculty, and staff, and to help slow the spread of the virus.

During tomorrow’s class periods, we will be preparing students to move to a virtual learning environment. Beginning Wednesday, March 18, we start our classes online through April 9th, when the spring break begins.

The timeline below coordinates staff and student actions for their transition home.

Friday, March 13

• Faculty virtual learning environment training/planning 8:00-9:00am;
• Classes will follow with all seven classes meeting for 30 minute periods with faculty instruction on virtual learning.
• Students may begin leaving following the last class at 2:00pm.

Saturday, March 14

• Proceed with SAT administration; families can decide whether to cancel or reschedule their testing.

Saturday, March 15

• Students continue to depart campus.

Monday, March 16 – Tuesday, March 17

• Monday and Tuesday will be teacher work days for faculty to prepare for remote learning and for students to transition back home.

Wednesday, March 18

• Transition fully to online learning following regular class schedule on the current rotation.

Sunday, March 22

• Open House 2-4 pm as currently scheduled, but may move to a virtual platform as necessary. This is the best option for our community as well as individual students at this time.

Those who were interested in their student remaining on campus for spring break will need to plan on their student staying off-campus in the arrangements made for this duration.

No school-sponsored events will be held on or off campus. If possible, we will make up internal events.

At this time, the following major events on our schedule have been cancelled:

• Parade Unit’s Florida Trip
• Drill Team’s Trip to AFJROTC National Drill Meet in Ohio
• New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade
• Leadership Symposium and Tech Pilots Day at Middle School (both March 28th)

As we continue to monitor the situation off campus, virtual learning may last longer as needed for the safety of our students and employees. While students are able to leave things in their rooms, you should be prepared for the long haul and bring things home that would enable virtual learning, particularly your Macbook and charger.

A structured, healthy routine including physical activity would be advised.  This will be helpful when campus operations resume.

We will keep you aware as the situation evolves and new information is received. We aspire to return to full-time, in-residence operations as soon as it is safe and practical to do so. Please continue to check this page for updates.

For questions regarding the Virginia cases or general coronavirus questions, please contact: Virginia Department of Health hotline: 1-877-ASK-VDH3.  For the latest public health updates go to: http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/surveillance-and-investigation/novel-coronavirus/.