CHEC's Coronavirus Response

Like everyone, the volunteers who run CHEC have struggled to figure out how to proceed amid concerns surrounding COVID-19. At CHEC, our goal is to help home schoolers connect and this is more important than ever. At the same time, we face many of the same obstacles as businesses and schools-—we don’t want to get anyone sick and we need to comply with local regulations. Seeing as both best practice recommendations and regulations are moving targets, this is pretty challenging. We do have a plan, outlined below, but please understand that the plan can change at any time.

We currently plan to offer a selection of online and outdoor classes. We hope that outdoor classes will be feasible for us because we can meet outdoors, in small groups, with social distancing. Our intention is to provide an opportunity to connect with other homeschooling families. We regret that we can not offer our regular variety of classes, that we need to ask parents to stay on site, and that our classes will need to use social distancing measures. We understand that our current plan is a shadow of what we once offered, but it is the best we can do right now. This plan is in place for our 4 week early fall term and will be reassessed prior to our late fall term. We will expand our services as soon as we can.

• Classes will be held outdoors. At this time, the church is not able to commit to renting to us and their outdoor space is minimal. Classes will likely meet in a local park, but if anyone has suggestions for a great outdoor space, we’d love to hear it. Our ideal space would be spacious (enough space to run 5 separate classes), have restrooms, and protection from the weather.
• In the event of bad weather, cancellation notice will be posted on the CHEC website. We’ll post cancellations prior to 10:00 am.
• Students will be asked to maintain a 6’ distance from others. Students aged 10 and over will be asked to bring a mask or a face guard. This does not need to be in use if you are distanced, but, per local regulations, if you can not maintain social distance, you should have on a mask or face guard. For students under 10, we appreciate it if they can follow this policy, but local regulations do not require it.
• Instructors will be asked to design courses that maintain distance so that students will not need face coverings for the majority of the class. Students can expect to have home zones in their class (a blanket, chalk outline, hula hoop) that are distanced.
• Parents will be asked to stay on site. We know parents value the break time that CHEC typically provides, but we just aren’t in a position to do that at this time. In particular, our site may not have bathrooms, so parents need to be on hand to assist their children. We also don’t wish to put our instructors in the position of having to regulate social distancing rather than teaching and hope parents can assist in this area. As we are not taking over supervisory responsibility for your child, we will not have sign in/sign out sheets the way we usually do. (It is fine for parents to negotiate supervisory responsibilities for their child with another parent, but should communicate this arrangement with the teacher. Older students, who you would leave without supervision in other circumstances, may be left without supervision at CHEC, as long as you realize that we are not acting in a supervisory capacity.)
• There will be a lunch break between 2nd and 3rd period. As we hope to facilitate social connections, we think this time is especially important for students and hope they will socialize and play.
• CHEC will provide hand sanitizer, masks, and a limited amount of water for hand washing. It will not be possible for us to haul enough water for everyone to wash their hands under running water for 20 seconds. We encourage parents to bring extra water for hand washing, particularly for the lunch break.
• CHEC will have one site manager on site. The site manager will be available to help direct families to classes, answer questions, and assist instructors and families as needed. Please introduce yourself and your children to both the site manager and your child(ren)’s instructor.
• We have a very limited number of outdoor classes available--it is hard to predict demand at this time. If the class you are interested in is full, please add to the waitlist. If there are enough interested students on the waitlist, we will open another section if possible.

• As always, it is important to keep a sick child home.
• If we learn of a confirmed case of COVID-19 in one of our students, we will cancel classes for the following week. We would request that anyone who has a confirmed case inform us as quickly as possible so that we can cancel. CHEC officers will not share the identity of the sick child with other CHEC families, but will ask permission of the family to share the identity with the class instructor so the instructor can let us know if any students in the class were in close contact with the sick child.

• We have changed our fall term to two short terms to limit financial liability for all involved.
• We have allocated extra make-up days to allow for illness and weather related cancellations (4 for fall, compared to the typical 1).
• We do have scholarship funds available for early fall. We know many families have been impacted financially by COVID and we want to help. Please do not hesitate to inquire about scholarship if finances are a concern for you.
• You may drop your class prior to Sept. 1st with no penalty. In recognition of the extenuating times, we are reducing the drop fee from $25 to $5 for drops made after Sept. 1st. If CHEC cancels classes prior to the first day of class, full refunds will be issued. If classes are cancelled after the first day of class, or if we are unable to offer the full 4 weeks of classes due to weather/illness, we will issue half refunds for the missed classes (where the remaining half goes to the teacher). We understand that no policy is perfect here and we want to be fair to teachers and families. Please keep in mind that everyone handling registrations and cancellations are volunteering their time—-please don’t put an undue burden on our volunteers.