Lawrenceville Announces Fall Reopening Plan

Head of School Steve Murray announced today what he called a “prudent, careful strategy” to reopen Lawrenceville in the fall, on campus and in-person. Details on how the School will handle health and wellness; academics; residential and campus life; athletics, performing arts, and cocurriculars; campus operations, and student enrollment, along with a fall academic calendar and communication timeline, can be found on the School’s Fall 2020 Reopening webpage. All current Lawrenceville families have been invited by Murray to a Zoom webinar, tomorrow at 7:00 p.m., where he, along with members of the School’s Relaunch Committee, will discuss fall reopening plans. (Any current families that did not receive the invitation should contact response@lawrenceville.org.)

An executive summary of the plan included the following points:

• Lawrenceville is fortunate that its small class size, spacious campus, temperate climate, and substantial resources position it to weather this global pandemic. The School has made significant investments to implement the reopening plan.
• The plan relies on a combination of testing (pre- and post-arrival), symptom tracking, contact tracing, social distancing, face coverings, de-densification, use of outdoor spaces and tents, improved filtering of air indoors, increased isolation space, robust quarantine protocols, and enhanced cleaning practices. All students will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days prior to arriving for the start of school.
• Classes will be a hybrid combining in person and remote learning to enable Harkness teaching with proper social distancing.
• Lawrenceville will provide single rooms to all boarding students.
• While the School aims to deliver the essence of Lawrenceville, the plan entails significant changes in how the campus will operate.
• There will be new requirements incorporated into the Student Handbook this summer, and outside activity, travel, and visitors to campus will likely be restricted.
• Lawrenceville is actively working to provide the best athletic and cocurricular experience possible this year, but cannot yet provide detailed guidance about any specific sport or activity at this time.

“We do not underestimate the risk posed by COVID-19, or the impact that our safety protocols will have on almost every aspect of School life. We all want this to work, and to be successful, we will have to truly take to heart a sense of shared responsibility for other members of the community. We must understand that our individual actions will affect the health and well-being of our friends and colleagues,” said Murray. “We are counting on everyone’s collective goodwill and cooperation to achieve our shared goals with discipline and a strong commitment to our new way of community life at Lawrenceville.”

For additional information, please contact Lisa M. Gillard Hanson, director of Public Relations, at lgillard@lawrenceville.org.