Marion, Tabor Academy in talks on reopening school in the fall

Jun 3, 2020

MARION — Public Health Nurse Kathy Downey has started talking with  Julie Przybyszewski, director of Tabor Academy’s heath services about how to reopen campus in the late August or September.

Downey said at a June 2 Board of Health meeting the school is “very committed to being open in the fall. They don’t see themselves being closed for another year.” The two discussed requiring all kids to come back with thermometers, where to isolate students and how they could use classrooms.

Downey said she sympathized with Tabor’s struggles in transporting a symptomatic student, as she had a Marion resident who didn’t drive and wasn’t sick enough for an ambulance but needed to get to the hospital and caused quite a conundrum before a neighbor was able to take him.  

The Public Health Nurse said (and the school’s website confirms) that Tabor summer programs are cancelled for this year.

In an email to Sippican Week after the meeting, Kerry Saltonstall, director of communications at Tabor Academy, said the school is working on four different scenarios to bring students back in September.

These include returning to campus in September in a “new normal” state, returning in a hybrid model (some on campus, others learning remotely due to travel restrictions), returning with distance learning, and returning to campus with a plan ready should there be another outbreak where students and faculty need to vacate campus again.

The school hopes it can open with all the schools in the state during phase four of Gov. Charlie Baker’s reopening plan. “That is the best case scenario and one we sincerely hope we can get to,” Saltonstall said.