Dear Yellowstone Families,
As you have likely heard, Houston is beginning to ramp up its response to the coronavirus/COVID 19 outbreak, including shutting down the rodeo today and canceling or postponing many events around the city. As we did last week, we wanted to give you an update on how we are managing this situation to ensure that your family, our staff, and our students are safe.
With Regards to School Closure, We Will Follow HISD
As it states in our handbook, if HISD decides to close their school district for any reason, we follow their lead. We do this because there is so much overlap with the district in terms of our staff families, your families and other associated services and programs across the city. As of this writing, our campus is open and operational for the remainder of this week. We recognize that this is a rapidly changing situation, so please continue to monitor the news for updates on school closures. You can also visit our website at www.yellowstoneschools.org for updated information. If we have to close school, we will notify you via email, our website and Remind101 texts.
Our Campus and Buses
We take campus cleanliness very seriously and strive to always maintain a campus that is safe and clean for your students every day. Our custodial staff is typically here until after 8:00 every evening to ensure we are following all health guidelines and preparing each school space for instruction. Over spring break we had already planned on doing a “deep clean” across the campus that will conform to the guidelines listed by the Harris County Department of Health and other agencies. Tomorrow (Thursday), we are also doing a deep clean of our buses and will do another deep clean over the spring break holiday to also ensure a safe environment for our students.
While COVID-19 is a rapidly evolving serious public health threat, the Houston Health Department says the immediate threat to our city and school communities is very low. Should COVID-19 reach our city or school community, we and the Houston Health Department are prepared to protect our families through appropriate control measures.
No Volunteers on Campus for Thursday and Friday
To follow the city’s lead, we will have a closed campus on Thursday and Friday—meaning that we will not have any outside volunteers on campus interacting with our staff and students. This is an extreme precaution, but we thought it was important for you to know that we are maintaining a controlled environment at all times.
Where to go for More Information
It is important that you are getting the right information about this situation and as much as possible ensuring that the news is accurate and helpful. We highly recommend that you visit this site to learn more about the virus and our city’s response: http://publichealth.harriscountytx.gov/. This site is updated daily and we will also have a link on our website so that you can access it easily.
Be Smart about School Attendance
If your child is well and not exhibiting any symptoms of being sick or having a fever, PLEASE send them to school. There is learning happening in our classrooms everyday and it is important for your student to have the consistency and continuity of the school day, particularly as we prepare for spring break. As always, if your child has a fever or is sick, please keep them home until they have been fever free for 24 hours. Otherwise, we want them in school as we wrap up the third quarter and prepare to send report cards when we return after the break.
Thank you for partnering with us as we work through this week. Please continue to monitor our website and social media and let us know if you have any other questions.
Ryan Dolibois
Executive Director, Yellowstone Academy
Superintendent, Yellowstone College Prep
