As the 2020-2021 school year comes to an end, Choate has begun to draft its guidelines for the upcoming school year. This year, Choate has maintained stringent rules in response to the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic. For the 2021-2022 school year, the School will be making major changes to Covid-19 guidelines, class schedules, and housing.
In September, the School will mandate vaccines for all students, unless specific medical risks prevent them from receiving one. Choate will grant students the opportunity to be vaccinated upon arrival to campus, so those who don’t have access to the vaccine before returning to campus will still be able to attend classes in person. Although the School hasn’t received clearance to administer the vaccines on campus just yet, they are hoping they will be allowed this privilege before the beginning of fall term.
Medical Director Dr. Miriam Cohen, who has been at the forefront of Choate’s Covid-19 response team, said, “This is especially important for our international students since [the] vaccine is not readily available worldwide.” The decision to mandate vaccinations was made to ensure optimal safety and a return to a greater sense of normalcy than has been possible in the past school year.
Planning other Covid-19 guidelines has proved challenging with the ever-changing circumstances. Similar to the past two terms, Choate will be monitoring infection and vaccination rates on a state and global level to determine adequate guidelines for students’ return to campus.
“We will take guidance from agencies like the CDC, but, we need to keep in mind that some of those guidelines are not necessarily designed for school settings or for boarding schools in particular, so we have to factor in what’s going to be best for Choate,” said Dean of Students Mr. Mike Velez ’00.
Other than new Covid-19 protocols, a return to the 2019-2020 school year class schedule that includes the return to 70-minute blocks and eliminates night classes will also take place next year. The current schedule was implemented to accommodate students in different time zones and to be conscious of the significant screen time demanded by online learning. The School anticipates that all learning next year will occur in-person, even though students in special circumstances will receive support for distance-learning if necessary.
The fall will also welcome new housing arrangements. The large number of accepted students will mean that the basement of Memorial House will become housing for third-form boys instead of fifth-form boys as it has been the last two years. The reopening of Hill House is set for next year, which will be used for college counseling offices, as well as a new, co-ed dorm. What was an all-boys dorm, Hill House, will be split into two wings for male and female students.
Director of Residential Life Mr. Will Morris said, “I am looking forward to having boys and girls living under one roof in separate wings while sharing common areas. A similar living arrangement has been a great success at the Kohler Environmental Center (KEC), allowing for the natural development of close friendships regardless of gender, and I am thrilled that students living on the main campus will have a similar opportunity.”
In addition, West Wing will replace Combination House as the all-gender house on campus. With the program nearly doubling in size this year, the search for a new dorm that accommodated all students who wanted to live in all-gender housing was necessary. Additionally, the interest of the dorms’ advisers were taken into consideration, and West Wing advisers displayed a strong interest in supporting the students in the program.
