Hello Preschool Families:
We hope that all of you are staying safe and enjoying the summer. We have certainly missed seeing all our students for the past few months!
We are writing today to let you know that Good Shepherd Lutheran Preschool is going to remain closed for in-person instruction this school year. We made this decision for the following reasons:
The recent resurgence of the virus in our community, the lack of a continuing downward trend in the data, and the ever-changing information about how the virus behaves due to its novelty.
Concerns over the health and safety for both teachers and students and their families.
The decision of Montgomery County Public Schools to go completely online this fall. This greatly impacts our teachers’ ability to work since they will be assisting their own school-age children with on-line learning. We also understand that this takes away some of the flexible schedule of many of our families.
Reduced tuition income due to the state mandate for smaller class sizes.
Our desire for the preschool to financially be able to reopen for many years to come once this pandemic is over.
Starting this week our office will begin processing checks to refund 2020-21 tuition payments. Most families enrolled for the fall paid both a registration fee and the first tuition payment for the class that they chose. We are able to refund you the tuition payment, but the registration fee covers ongoing administrative costs and will not be refunded.
If your family is able to donate your first month’s tuition payment to us as a charitable contribution, we would greatly appreciate it. The school will still have some expenses this year since we are not closing our doors for good; we are only taking a pandemic pause. We still need to pay some of the bills, and we are trying to continue to support our teachers who will be working on virtual school. Your charitable contribution will help us mitigate any losses and bounce back as soon as possible. We can provide you with a charitable contribution letter for tax purposes.
In the meantime, we have plans to offer a new on-line learning program. We are going to build on what we learned last spring. Our team has some great ideas for making it more vibrant and fun. We aim to have small group Zoom lessons more frequently so that our students feel connected to our team teachers and have a chance to learn and share how they are feeling. We also want to add a gross motor class to our weekly music and biweekly chapel classes. We are also in discussion on safely having small cohort outdoor adventures! We will be watching what MCPS schedules will look like, so that we can schedule our lessons when siblings won’t have to be in class.
We will also have a group of teachers on our staff who will be available for either private tutoring or small group private learning. More information on these opportunities will be emailed to you soon.
Please email us to let us know if you need a charitable contribution letter or a tuition refund at gspreschool@outlook.com.
We appreciate all our families who chose us as their preschool, and we hope that we can continue to support you through all this. Our virtual program will be announced soon, and even if that isn’t a good fit your family, please know we are here if we can help you in any way!
GSLP will miss “ewe”! Stay safe- we’ll be together soon!