4 • THE GRYPHON Fall/Winter 2021
ON THE QUAD
Our Path to Reopening After a fully remote spring in 2020, planning committees comprised of students, faculty, and staff, focusing on issues such as Public Health & Hygiene, Calendar & Schedule, and Diversity, Equity & Wellness, worked hard over the summer to prepare CSW for a safe return to school in the fall. The first three weeks of school (September 8 – 25) ran with academic classes online with opportunities for students to come to campus for D Blocks (sports and other co-curriculars) in the afternoon. After weeks of professional development work on agile teaching over the summer, faculty practiced teaching from their classrooms with new technology setups the week of September 21-25. On September 29, on-campus classes resumed, albeit with a number of changes.
Students were given the chance to engage in classes virtually from home, or live and in-person on campus, meaning all faculty had to quickly learn how to simultaneously teach students in-person in their classrooms in Weston, and online, to students across the globe. This variance in engagement styles also compelled the school to completely re-imagine its schedule, building out a new weekly structure that accommodated students in multiple time zones and allowed for a weekly deep cleaning of campus. At the start of the school year, roughly 85% of students opted to learn on-campus, with about 15% at home. Thirty-six boarding students returned to CSW to live and learn on campus, down from the usual 90 student residents.
