Term 3 Midterm Update

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Dear Members of the KAIS Community,

Thank you again for your continued support during this ongoing health crisis. We hope that you and your family have been managing to stay safe and healthy despite the daily worries we’re all facing. As mentioned in my previous message, I’ll be updating you today on how we’ll be moving forward together until the end of the school year.

We’ve continued to monitor the situation and gather data in order to make an informed decision regarding the school’s next step. While new daily infections seem to have finally declined, whether the situation is under control still cannot be confirmed due to insufficient testing. The Japan Medical Association president believes that it is not possible to lift the state of emergency at this stage, while the Tokyo Metropolitan Government will likely extend the declaration until June. Several international schools in Tokyo have already announced their closure for May or the rest of the school year, and internally our teaching team feels apprehensive about recommencing classes immediately following Golden Week.

In order to ensure the health and safety of our students, families, and staff, we have decided to continue the distance learning program until the end of the school year, which has been extended until July 3. Wishing to keep all options available, however, we will revisit the situation by June 5 to see if a return to school on Monday, June 8 is possible. In this scenario, we would recommence at-school operations as well as offer live video lessons to our students living overseas or who would prefer to abstain from coming into school.

Since the current DLP was conceived to be a stopgap measure while we temporarily weathered the COVID scare in March (…and then April), it’s clear that a more comprehensive offering will be needed if we are to continue the DLP until the end of the school year. After collecting parent feedback and discussing our options as a team, we are close to finalizing a major update to our approach. Within the next week, we’ll be introducing the third iteration of our DLP (Ver. 3) to the community, so we look forward to rolling that out immediately upon returning from the Golden Week break on Monday, May 11.

We strongly appreciate your patience and kind understanding with this new direction, and wish for the continued health and safety of all KAIS community members during this challenging crisis. As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions, comments, or suggestions.

Sincerely,

Justin Bethune
Principal
KAIS International Elementary & Middle School

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