Dear Harbor Families,

I’m writing this email while watching the rain out of my window. My kids are missing school today because someone made the decision to close school! 

I imagine you are feeling the same level of frustration as I am. I wanted to acknowledge that, to say I’m sorry it worked out this way, and to explain a little more. Last night, when our team discussed what to do following the MCPS announcement to delay (with input from other local heads of school as well), the winter weather was expected to begin at 7 AM, so waiting until the morning didn’t seem to make sense at the time. Much to our dismay, the morning brought a different forecast that would have allowed us to open on time. Then, the morning’s forecasts predicted a messy, unsafe commute for our announced delayed time of arrival, which, again, didn’t prove to be correct. I’m sure you know that we were acting with the best intentions to keep our community safe and with the information we had available to us at the time, but still, here we are sitting at home in the rain.

Please be assured that I know how very, very important an in-person school day is for our students - especially given the landscape with the pandemic. Not that this changes the fact that the kids missed a precious day of school, but I am sorry - and I’ve been feeling the weight of this and how it has impacted all of you all day. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.

I am hopeful that weather interruptions will be minimal going forward this winter. However, should we need to miss more days, I’d like to share the plan. The school calendar has four days built in for inclement weather closures and we have just had our third without distance learning. Therefore, if needed, we’ll take one more day of a true “snow day”, and following that, we’ll hold distance learning in the case of closures.

To close out this letter with some good news, we have just had our third week of all negative results in our weekly testing! As we watch the COVID levels begin to decline sharply in Montgomery County, there may just be a light at the end of the tunnel!

Thank you all, as always, for your support and understanding through each new challenge. 

Warmly,

Leah Musico

Head of School