Newsletter: August 10
Dear Common Ground Families,
It’s been a while since we have sent out a newsletter so this one will be full of a ton of information! We are happy to announce that our Book Fair was wildly successful. Miss LJ did such a great job planning it that it went off without a hitch, even in her absence. On that note…
Delta Varient
Its been all over the news, but the delta variant is here and causing the percent positivity in Fairfax County to rise. Our center has already been affected with two, fully vaccinated parents of children attending getting breakthrough infections. We have been very lucky at this point that no children within our care have contracted covid, but it is just that, luck.
Please take the time to review our Community Pledge as we all work together to keep our center safe!
You can also access the latest update from the health department here, as well as our comprehensive health FAQ here.
School Year Schedules:
Infants/Toddlers/Preschoolers: The preschool will remain in SUMMER PROGRAMMING until after our teacher work day on September 3rd and the Federal Holiday on September 6th. Our FALL PROGRAM infants, toddlers, and preschoolers will begin on Tuesday, September 7th, 2021.
Kindergarten/School Aged: The kindergarten program follows the FCPS school year calendar. Here’s the FCPS calendar with the days that Common Ground is closed (Federal Holidays) noted on it.
School Year - Classroom Pods and Teacher Teams
We are continuing to operate our classrooms as ‘Pods’. This means that children within each classroom group will not interact with children from other classroom groups indoors during the hours of 8am and 5:30pm. With the news that vaccinated individuals are still at risk of contracting and spreading the coronavirus, we are grouping Pods into Teams. This will allow us to have some staff coverage if necessary. The teams are:
Bubble Buddies, Little Penguins, and Playful Pandas
Rising Stars and Dancing Monkeys
Busy Bees and name TBD second 4 year old class
Kindergarten and School Aged Program
Our goal will be to keep teachers from leaving their team. This will help assist with any contact tracing that we might have to do, if we were to have Covid come into the center.
We will still be offering morning and evening hours by sign up, however, these hours will not be with your child’s pod or team, therefore there is an additional risk that your child will have to quarantine when their classroom would otherwise be open.
Transitions
There are only a few children that will transition to a new classroom with the start of our fall program on September 7th. You will be notified via brightwheel if your child will be moving to a new classroom for the fall.
Billing Switch and Yearly Fee Reminder
Just a reminder that you will see a $150 yearly registration fee on your September invoice for all children over the age of two.
For families that are not enrolled in automatic payments:
We will be switching our payment system to Brightwheel! This is exciting because it will bring our fees down from 1% per transaction to just $0.60 AND we are able to offer credit card payments and pass the fees on to families!
Just a reminder, you can still sign up for ACH payments with this form and we will automatically take the payments on the first of the month (or the first business day of the month).
Before and Aftercare for School Aged Kids
We will be offering Before/After care for children attending Fairfax County Public Schools this school year. While we know from verbal commitments who needs care, we need to notify the schools which kids are signed up for our program on which days. Please fill out this form so that we can notify the schools.
*before/after care and closed days (including Winter and Spring Breaks) are included in our all inclusive kindergarten program.
School Aged Program Pricing:
$800/month with a 9 month contract gives your all access - before care, after care, all days that FCPS is scheduled to be closed, plus all closed days for inclement weather
$175/month with a 9 month contract - all days that FCPS is scheduled to be closed, plus all closed days for inclement weather
Part time with a regular schedule will be calculated at $33/day for before and after care (such as every M/W/F)
$35/day for before and after care a la carte
$85/day for FCPS closed days, inclement weather days by availability only
And that’s what we have for this week!
Thank you for trusting us with the care of your littles!
