SUMMER 2020 UPDATE
Dear Usdan families:
I hope this email finds you safe and well. As we remain in quarantine with our families - working from home and homeschooling - you may find yourself in a groundhog day scenario with one day bleeding into the next, the stages of grief cycling through.
What pushes me forward is thinking of the day we can reunite on Usdan’s sunny wooded campus.
It will feel so good.
I would like to thank you for completing the Considering Summer 2020 survey. We have never had as high of a response rate.
Thanks to your honest responses, we have gathered information from over 50% of our enrolled families, giving us a full depiction of the priorities and stressors you have for the months ahead.
With this information, the Usdan staff can continue to plan for a season this summer that is aligned with our parents’ needs. As I read through your responses, I was reminded of the strength, intelligence, and thoughtfulness of our parent community.
It is clear you are conflicted and concerned about camp this summer, while also remaining hopeful.
The staff and I feel it is time to update you on our planning for the upcoming 2020 season. To be direct, there is much we still don’t know.
While I feel it is important to acknowledge this uncertainty, I wanted to take this time to outline for you what we do know.
WHAT WE DO KNOW
In order to keep our students, families, staff and performers safe, we know that our beloved program will need to change. We plan to announce a revised program the week of May 25, 2020. As always, we hope to have a dialogue with you about these changes. To that end, please expect a follow up survey early next week about some specific program changes we are considering.
We are sad to announce that we can’t envision a safe scenario that would allow large groups of children to use the pools so we have made the hard decision to not open them this summer. We know that this will affect many of your children’s chosen minors or recreational activities and ask that you please wait to request a schedule change until after we announce our revised program.
We’ve been hearing that day camps could be deemed essential child care and allowed to open this summer with strict operating requirements.
Though we’ve only seen draft guidelines for day camps from the CDC, we know that the American Camp Association (ACA) is in the process of working with an expert panel of medical, infectious disease, and environmental health specialists to create detailed operating guidelines for day camps. These ACA Camp Operations Guidelines are due to be completed by mid-May and you can review the outlined table of contents for the guidelines here.
We would like to acknowledge that ultimately the decision to open camp is up to state and local governments. The main scenario we’re planning for right now is an in-person season that promotes health and safety above all.
PARENT SURVEY FINDINGS
In reviewing your responses to the survey, there were a number of questions that are clearly front of mind for parents. We are working with the Usdan Board of Trustees to prioritize answering your questions before the end of May.
We think it is important that you know how the rest of your parent community is thinking ahead to Summer 2020. Please click the button below to review our parent survey findings.
CAMP WITHDRAWALS
As a reminder, the current deadline to withdraw and receive a full refund is May 31. We respect any family’s decision to withdraw from camp this summer. If you decide to withdraw, we ask you to consider leaving all or part of tuition paid to be used for Summer 2021, or that you consider making your 2020 tuition a donation to Usdan, if you are financially able. If Usdan is not able to run this summer, our nonprofit camp will receive little to no tuition income and will experience extreme financial hardship.
Your generosity can help us sustain many of our core needs, help us to provide tuition assistance and scholarships, improve our facilities for when it is safe to return to camp, and assemble the best faculty. Most importantly, your support will help ensure that Usdan can keep its gates open for many years to come.
No matter what this summer looks like, we are committed to bringing joy and creative inspirations to your children.
As many of you requested on the survey, we promise to continue sending frequent and honest communications and will inform you of any new guidelines from the CDC or ACA as they are released. We will also continue sending creative resources via our Summer Starts Now initiative.
As always, we want to hear from you and encourage you to email us at director@usdan.org, call us at 631-643-7900 and leave a voicemail, or use the chat function on our website.
I look forward to the day we reunite at camp,
Lauren Brandt Schloss, Executive Director
