MCS to resume face-to-face classes on March 30

On March 17, 2020, Mount Carmel School’s Leadership Team continued its consultation with the Commonwealth Health Care Corp., Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program, and the CNMI COVID-19 Task Force to seek guidance on how to move forward with the spread of COVID-19. Based on a lengthy meeting with extensive discussion, and consistent with CNMI Executive Order No. 2020-04 from the Office of the Governor declaring a state of public health emergency and continued state of significant emergency, the school has decided to take the following steps.

Spring break will be rescheduled and extended to cover the period of March 16 through March 27. This will allow the school to participate in community-wide mitigation and containment efforts for COVID-19 without sacrificing too much instructional time.

Face-to-face classes will resume on Monday, March 30, with additional safety and health precautions implemented to ensure the safety of students, teachers, and their families.

To maximize remaining instructional time, Mini-Course Week, from April 6 through April 9, will be cancelled.

As a result of this rescheduling, there will be no Spring break from April 13 through April 17.

In addition, the school will continue precautionary measures to ensure the safety of its students, teachers, and their families, including suspending its short-term auditing program for foreign students, reinforcing campus cleaning with disinfectants, sharing information from the Centers for Disease Control on proper personal hygiene, and requiring a 14-day quarantine for any member of the school family returning from off-island travel.

Until further notice, when classes resume on March 30, the school will exercise social distancing by suspending all major assemblies (flag raising, Knights calisthenics, Friday Mass/rosary, etc.) and student activities (sports games, fundraisers, dances, etc.). Major events, like the induction ceremony for the Immaculate Conception Chapter of the National Junior Honor Society and the Father Arnold Bendowski Chapter of the National Elementary Honor Society, will be postponed until such time that public health officials determine it is safe to hold large assemblies.

Mount Carmel School will continue to provide ample notification and information to all students, parents, teachers, and families via email, our website, all our social media outlets, and local media.

“And finally, pray. As a Catholic school, our faith must be the center of our lives, no matter what is happening in the world. We invite all school stakeholders to join as one family as we pray the ‘Prayer for Global Healing from Coronavirus’ at exactly 8am Monday through Friday,” the school said in a statement.

Students can also pray devotional prayers appropriate for the season of Lent like the Holy Rosary and the Stations of the Cross. And, during this time of mitigation and containment, everyone can follow daily masses from Mount Carmel Cathedral on the following Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pg/dioceseofchalankanoa/videos/ (PR)