This past Tuesday evening, ​Thacher Administration held another all-​community ​Question and ​Answer session for ​our families. ​Thank you to all those that were able to attend--we had a great turnout. If you were not able to join for the Zoom, the meeting was recorded. Please check the Parent Resource page of the Re-entry Plan to view. ​

We will continue to offer these Administrative Q & A Zooms quarterly for the remainder of the school year. This town hall-style meeting has been working well--it's a great way to keep us feeling connected as a community. Our next meeting will be sometime in early January, so look keep an eye on Notes Home for the exact date and time. Take a few minutes to watch some of Tuesday evening's recording, and please do continue to let us know how we can best support your family.

Thacher's Book Fair is online! Support our school and help your child discover new books, favorite characters, and complete series. Shop for Book Fair exclusives directly from the interactive booklist and enjoy free shipping on book-order purchases over $25.

I get excited each Friday knowing our Thacher community has achieved another healthy week of in-school learning. This success reflects the resolve you have shown with the adherence of our re-entry plan, and our in-school procedures and protocols.

It is inevitable that at some point, a member of the Thacher community gets “the” call that they are a close contact of an individual who has tested positive. Your natural response may be fear, guilt, sadness, or anger. These reactions are natural and understandable.

Should you get that call, my advice is to reach out. I am here to help. So….what do you do? The first thing is prepare to quarantine for 14 days, even if you have never felt better! Science says that individuals are contagious 48 hours before their first symptom, and the incubation period can last 14 days after the potential exposure. The next step is to let me know to help you assess potential risks, calm your fears, advise you, whatever you may need.

If you are a known close contact of a COVID-19 positive person, you will want to get a PCR test about five days after potential exposure. You may wonder why, if that test comes back negative, would you still need to quarantine. This brings us back to the potential incubation period. Check the image above for an explanation.

As you may have noticed, positive Covid-19 cases have been on the rise. I've been meeting regularly with the Board of Health members to keep my finger on the pulse of positive case statistics, areas, ages, etc. There have been clusters of positive cases among hockey players and coaches, particularly at the high school level. You may have even heard that all hockey activity is being halted as of Five o'clock today for two weeks. Fortunately, data has not reflected a reason to feel as though we are among the population experiencing the uptick in cases for the Thacher community. I will continue to monitor cases and age groups involved in positive Covid-19 cases.

Have a great weekend and, as always, feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns.

Nurse Carolynn

If you haven't already helped your child join their Thacher Google Classroom, please do so as soon as possible. In case we have to switch to online learning, we don't want students missing out on any lessons.

Log in with your child's Thacher email address and go to classroom.google.com. Need help? Contact Andrea ([email protected])

Drop your items in the box outside of the school near the front door, or send them with your child to be placed in one of the boxes inside the school.

Thanks to Caden and Logan Dai Bihldorff for supplying pumpkins from the Pakeen Farm for art class.

Click here to see more images.

If your child was absent on Picture Day, or if you need a retake, Retake Day is Monday, November 23. Details to follow.

Share this shopping voucher when you shop at The Milton or Hingham Fruit Center between Monday, November 9 and Sunday, November 15 and Thacher receives 20% of your total purchases!

In education, the goal is to help all children succeed. Success depends on the child, yes, but also the environment and barriers they face. Many folks have seen the Equality vs. Equity cartoon (below). It's a pretty powerful image that helps children (and adults) understand that even when everyone gets the same thing, that's often still not fair.

Metaphors are powerful, as they become shorthands for how we think about complex ideas. In this case, the image above suggests that people are inherently disadvantaged, less capable of success. But when communities of color can't access resources, that's not an inherent problem, that's a structural problem. Generations of institutionalized privilege are the reason folks can't access the same view:

We encourage you to read EJR David's Inequality, Equality, and Equity article for more exploration of what creating equity looks like. Structural inequality can be changed. How it changes is our work.

Wishing you peace and health,

The Thacher Diversity Committee

Join other Thacher parents and caregivers on Thursday mornings for a quick walk at Blue Hills! We meet at 8:30 am at the Trailside lot.

Want to organize a hike for another day, or share any other community building ideas? Just email [email protected] for help coordinating, supporting, and spreading the word!