We are so grateful to our Academy families for making these past few months possible for us to continue sharing our love of music with you!
We reopen for in-person lessons as of Tuesday, September 8th, 2020. Our decisions and adjustments are being pulled from the specific notes for music instruction from the provincial government, as well as drawing on the guidelines for public schools re-opening in the fall.
Here is what you need to know:
Masks are mandatory for all those over two years of age in our space. We have extra masks available for purchase at our front desk in the event that you forget yours. Masks are required throughout our lessons, including vocal.
Sanitation
There will be a mandatory hand sanitizer station in the entrance to the building.
Teachers will be provided with sanitizer wipes to use on common surfaces between lessons.
There will be sanitizer available at the front desk as well as in washrooms, in addition to hand soap.
The admin team will sanitize door handles and front desk several times per shift; washrooms will be cleaned frequently and daily as well.
The front desk will have plexiglass added.
Crowd Control
We will be staggering lesson start times to alleviate congestion at the front desk; some teachers will remain at the hour/half hour, and some teachers will move to the quarter hour for start times (example, 5:15 and 5:45 instead of 5:00 and 5:30). We appreciate your flexibility with these adjustments, as they will help us maintain physical distancing within our building.
We will be giving our waiting spaces a makeover, spacing all available seating adequately, and removing bench/couch seating.
Parents are encouraged to drop-off, and/or to minimize number of accompanying family members for students' lessons.
Illness
We will have a zero tolerance policy for students or staff entering the building with symptoms of illness. Teachers and staff reserve the right to request a student be taken home if they are in attendance with symptoms.
Discipline-specific Advisories
Piano, guitar, violin, and drums are all deemed safe to proceed provided two meters of space between student and teacher can be observed, as well as mindfulness to sanitation practices.
Voice, woodwind, and brass are recommended to distance more than two meters (four meters is the ideal) to account for turbulent air flow. To this end, we have moved all vocal and wind teachers to our largest classrooms, and we will also be utilizing the Ready Room (large group room) for regular teaching. All of these rooms are equipped with large sheets of plexiglass between the student and the teacher.
Group Classes
At this time all group programming will be suspended. Small groups such as duets are still permissible, but we will hold off on any of our larger groups until the situation is clearer. There is potential for some groups such as strings to proceed later in term two, but we wish to handle re-opening and seeing how everything feels before we examine groups further.
Contingency Planning
We reserve the right to elect to return to Skype teaching at any time in this process. Students should be prepared to return to online lessons on short notice if case numbers begin to create concern quickly as they did in March - to this end, we ask that students be sure they have up-to-date e-mail addresses on file with us, as well as following us on Facebook, as this would be our primary two ways of communicating such changes in services if necessary.