Dear Canterbury Community,

Earlier this afternoon, Governor Holcomb announced that all schools in the State of Indiana are to remain closed for the remainder of the school year. This means that Canterbury School will continue to employ a remote learning environment for instruction for the remainder of the school year.

This is, quite simply, incredibly disappointing. Not because our students will not continue to have access to a strong educational program and be able to explore and discover new topics with a variety of digital tools, but because of the loss of the interactive, relational quality that typifies the Canterbury community. Spring is such a vibrant time on our campus, and the many events that allow us to celebrate this exciting time of year – the Spring Luncheon, the Lower School Musical, the Lower School/Middle School Art Show, Spring Concerts, the Fine Arts Recognition Evening, the Cav-E Awards ceremony – will not be able to bring us together to recognize and honor the achievements of our students.

Perhaps even more devastating will be the loss of our end-of-year activities in their traditional form – the Moving Up ceremonies, the awards ceremony in the Middle and High Schools, Prom, the Senior Dinner, Closing Exercises in the Lower School and Middle School, and Baccalaureate and Graduation in the High School. These events carry with them an enormous emotional investment on the part of students, families, and our faculty, and the loss of these emblematic moments will be felt greatly by everyone in our community. This is certainly not the final year of school that our seniors were planning, and I imagine that they, in particular, will need to feel our care and support often as the end of the school year approaches.

Be assured that we will approach this new set of circumstances with the same level of commitment and optimism that typifies our faculty's level of dedication to, care of, and advocacy for your children, for their talents, and for their aspirations. Our students remain in very capable hands, and I know that there have already been many conversations about how we can ensure that our strong sense of community can endure, even if we are not able to spend each day physically together.

Inevitably, there will be many details that we will need to sort through as we move forward – access to the buildings so that students and faculty can retrieve personal items; alterations to the requirements of promotion between grades and of graduation; announcement of award recipients; distribution of certificates of completion and diplomas. The list is daunting, but we will work diligently to answer these logistical questions and communicate those decisions to you over the next several weeks.

Division Directors, in particular, will be sending notes to you tomorrow with details of remote learning, which will now become the norm for us. We will provide regular opportunities for you to provide your feedback and suggestions to us regarding your children's educational experiences, both in person, through virtual "coffees" with Ms Burrows, Mr Coffeen, and Mr Ottenweller, and electronically, via weekly surveys starting near the end of the week of April 13. Working together, we will continually refine our remote learning community to make it as strong and vibrant as possible.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to me with any questions or concerns that may arise over the coming weeks.

Take care of yourselves and your families.

Kind Regards,

Bill Ennist
Head of School

Canterbury School