COVID-19 SAFETY PLAN

We are COVID Responsive

As a parent-led cooperative preschool, RVCP maintains a strong and rigorous commitment to the social, emotional, and physical well-being of our students, as well as the families within our community and our teachers. RVCP’s COVID-19 Safety Plan will be updated to align with ongoing legal and medical requirements, recommendations and best practices. The Plan consists of a non-exhaustive list of health and safety protocols, approved by our Board, with the intention of maintaining optimal safety levels as we navigate in-person school together.

Family Responsibilities and Maintaining a Community of Care

At the center of our work to provide high-quality early learning, RVCP emphasizes a value of care for each other and our community. The success of in-person learning depends on everyone holding that value steady as individuals make choices that could impact others.

To participate in in-person school, families must agree to the following:

  • Ongoing monitoring of COVID-19 symptoms for their child and all individuals in their household.

  • Staying home when you, your child, or someone in your household is sick.

  • Taking your child’s temperature before drop-off and recording and initialing the temperature on the RVCP sign-in sheet. No child will be admitted to school with a temperature above 100ºF or showing any other COVID-19 related symptoms.

  • Sending your child to school with a mask (teachers will provide mask breaks,socially distanced, as needed).

  • Caregivers must wear masks and bring their own pen during drop off and pick up.

  • All adults working in our preschool must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or complete an exemption verification for medical or religious reasons. This includes working in the classroom or volunteering at school, cleaning shifts, and drop-off/pick-up.

  • Adhere to all other protocols listed in the RVCP Health and Safety Agreement.

If families chose to participate in school, we strongly encourage each family to take responsibility for the care of the community. This includes but is not limited to staying apprised of the local and national health and safety guidelines and adhering to those guidelines to the fullest extent possible. Current guidelines from Public Health include wearing masks while in public, washing hands frequently, maintaining six feet of social distance between yourself and others, and limiting the quantity of in-person gatherings. In alignment with the state mandate, all adults working in our preschool must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or complete an exemption verification for medical or religious reasons. We trust that families can help keep our school safe and operating by mitigating the risk of contracting COVID-19 outside of school interactions.

Teacher Responsibilities

The teachers at RVCP have agreed to in-person school. Our teachers have successfully operated preschool summer camp for two summers and completed the 2020/2021 school year, adhering closely to the safety protocols developed around social distancing and cleaning to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Our teachers agree to the following:

  • Adhere to state mandate of vaccination requirements for childcare workers.

  • Wearing masks at all times and washing/sanitizing hands frequently and in between helping individual students.

  • Ongoing self-monitoring of symptoms (temperature checks daily).

  • Encouraging social distancing as much as possible amongst children.

  • Adhering to the values of RVCP’s community of care and doing everything reasonably possible to mitigate their own risk.

  • Teachers can opt-out at any time if the environment feels unsafe.

Community Guidance Around Monitoring Symptoms

We expect all families to practice ongoing monitoring of symptoms. If you, your child, or someone in your household is experiencing symptoms and suspect you may have contracted COVID-19, stay home; we also highly recommend contacting your doctor and/or obtaining a COVID-19 test.

In order for RVCP to run in-person school we must maintain an Illness Log of all reported symptoms COVID-19 related or not.

Reducing Stigma

High levels of transparency help create a cohesive community and help us all stay safe. To that end, no one in our community will be stigmatized for reporting symptoms. We all must commit to reporting any COVID-19 symptoms to RVCP and to Public Health in order for the community to stay healthy.

Guidance Sources

To develop these protocols, our Board reviewed documents published by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Washington State Department of Health (DOH), and Public Health – Seattle and King County (‘Public Health’). Additionally, we consulted the Organization of Parenting Education Programs (OPEP) checklist for reopening preschools. From those recommendations, we created a list of protocols that our school will follow, both before we open and while school is in session, to mitigate the risks of spreading COVID-19.