TA News

This message was sent via email to the TA school community on 3/1/22.

Dear TA Students & Families,

As I’m sure many of you are aware from recent news reports, Governor Scott let go of the recommendation to require masking in schools as of 2/28/22, for those schools at or above an 80% student vaccination rate. The governor’s new recommendation to make masks optional is guidance (and not a mandate). The decision-making responsibility continues to rest with independent schools and supervisory unions in Vermont to determine their own Covid policies. 

At TA, we are fortunate to be in the category of exceeding the 80% student vaccination threshold, with approximately 86% of our student population having received their Covid vaccines. We are not shifting to a ‘mask optional’ approach at TA yet, however. We are moving ahead in a deliberate manner regarding changes in our Covid protocols, with consideration of a few metrics, including the CDC county rating alongside AOE guidance. The CDC county Covid rating for Orange County continues to be at the red ‘high’ level. For more details and links, you can review our decision-making framework: link to TA decision-making framework document.

These metrics will provide key inputs for our decision-making regarding Covid protocols, including when to transition to making masks optional for our school community. We are implementing some changes starting this week, including: a) phasing out daily morning health screenings; b) returning to in-person assemblies; c) shifting entirely to reliance on take-home rapid tests and eliminating weekly surveillance testing (today was the final round of PCR testing).

We will continue to keep our school community informed as we move ahead into this next phase of the pandemic. 

Thank you,

Carrie Brennan, Head of School