Weekly Family Email
January 8th, 2021
Week 21
We’ve had a busy and eventful week back at school. It’s always hard to come back from an extended break, but the students rallied and were happy to see one another.
As you hopefully know from the email sent by the office, after nearly six months of school we’ve had our first case of Coronavirus in the building. One of our elementary teachers has tested positive. Upon learning the news, we immediately initiated the protocols we developed at the beginning of the school year and closed the classroom for a ten-day quarantine, with siblings of students in the affected class staying home for now as well.
We know this is stressful, especially for the families who are directly affected by the quarantine. We are working hard to ensure that students don’t miss out on their learning, and we are so proud of their resiliency. They began online classes today!
At this point, we have had no cases among our students or other staff members. We are monitoring everyone carefully, and continue to check temperatures, wash hands frequently, and stay within class cohorts. This is unwelcome news for all of us, but we are following all CDC and VDH guidelines, and we will continue to do our best to keep everyone as safe as possible during this pandemic. Should any other cases come to light, we will alert all school families right away. In the meantime, if you ever have questions or concerns you should feel free to contact Dr. Nykwest at rnykwest@princewilliamacademy.com or at the school by calling 703-491-1444.
January is traditionally a busy month at PWA, and January 2021 is no exception. It’s International Month, and our students are already transforming their classrooms into other countries and preparing to share what they learn with others. We will keep you posted on plans for International Day on January 29th. Just before International Day, we’ll celebrate our 100th day of school on January 27th! Traditionally our students dress as centenarians on that day.
The end of the second grading period also falls at the end of the month, with report cards issued in early February.
As you may have seen this week, work is underway on a couple of different projects at the school, funded by the PWC Capital Investment Grant we received. We are updating our playgrounds, and adding parking to both the upper and lower lots. Our sidewalks in front of the building got a makeover during the holiday break, and we’ll be doing some improvements throughout the building soon. We’re very excited to see these changes happening around us!
We’re so happy to have your children back with us at school! We missed them over the break.
Have a wonderful weekend, PWA families!
As always, January is International Month at PWA! Throughout the month, we celebrate the world’s diversity by learning about different countries and cultures. Each class selects a country to study throughout the month and will learn about that country’s food, languages, dress, songs, geography, and traditions. We wrap up the month on International Day when the students share what they’ve learned with one another. We will keep you posted throughout the month as we devise plans to adapt our International Day celebration.
Congratulations to our 5th grade and middle school math teacher, Victor Bannerman, and his wife Charity, on the birth of their third daughter! Naomi Bannerman arrived on January 2nd, and we’re so happy to welcome her to the PWA family.
Our current lunch menu and lunch packets can always be found in the buttons at the end of each weekly email. The lunch menu is also directly below.
If you send your child to school with lunch, please remember that we are an entirely nut-free school.
