Dear Friends of the TxCHP community,
Thank you for your beautiful responses to our March 12, 2020 update. If you missed that update, you can read it
here
. We certainly have a special community here and are very thankful for each of you and your families. We are very thankful for the many who have encouraged us along this journey of many unknown variables.
Today brought another series of phone calls and emails with our directors and vendors and other decision makers, and a press conference from President Trump, Vice-President Pence and the COVID-19 Task Force asking everyone to take part in the "15 Days to Slow the Spread" of the virus. Their requests of each of us are to not meet in groups with more than 10 people, to remain home if we feel sick or have been sick, to quarantine in our homes if anyone in our home is infected with COVID-19, and to take extra care to help protect the health of the people who are at-risk.
DANCE LESSONS:
With that in mind, we are cancelling the March 21 and March 30 dance lessons - the ones called EAST 2 and WEST 2. This will impact the students registered for the lessons and the parents assigned to work. We will be sending out a separate note to those parents with some options.
OTHER PARENT PARTICIPATION CHANGES:
We are also making some changes to our other parent participation task events: staggering start times and finding ways to work in smaller groups with more space for social distancing. Thank you for working with us to help achieve that. Our warehouse space affords us some room to spread out and with smaller groups working on projects, we may have to be creative - like working on weekdays or mid-week evenings in addition to some weekends - in order to get all the things done before prom.
NIGHT OF PROM ASSIGNMENTS / TRAINING:
If you are a parent assigned to a Night of Prom Task, you may be hearing from your team lead or getting an email from Sunny over the course of the next few days. It is likely that our mandatory team training will have to be rescheduled, but we don't have info on when we can get that same space for a new date, so we will try to get those answers quickly and give you updates as soon as they are available to us.
WORKING WITH THE EMBASSY SUITES / FRISCO CONVENTION CENTER:
We have also had continued conversation with the hotel and convention center about plans for our event. They are excited to have a group that is working with them to find solutions rather than panicking because of what the future might hold. So many of you are standing with us in faith that God is in control. Your encouraging responses helped hold us up while it looked like a storm was raging around, so instead of stress, we have felt great peace in the midst of all this.
PROM IS STILL ON:
For now, we are making no changes to the main plans for prom. If a government entity mandates changes to the plans, we will consider how to get in line with those changes and still plan a stellar event for our students.
HEALTHY PROTOCOLS FOR OUR GUESTS:
We wanted to personally let you know that we are working with the hotel and other wise counsel to come up with protocols that will add to the health and safety of our prom guests. As we know more about these, we will update everyone.
HIS PEACE RULES IN OUR HEARTS:
We do remain intentional about operating from a place of peace and great faith, rather than fear or panic. Thank you for joining us in prayer for this incredible event. With so many sad things in the news right now and so many school-related cancellations, we are eagerly hoping to be celebrating in a really big way with our homeschooled high school students - whatever that may look like. As the world changes, the Good News does not. We remain joyful in that and trust Him for whatever the future holds.
Thank you for your ongoing love and concern for this extraordinary homeschooling community we have connected through TxCHP.
Blessings,
Sunny & Stephen Lerch, Vickey & Wayne Smith
Board of Directors, Texas Christian Homeschool Prom 2020