Dear Parents, Teachers, Staff, and Adult Club Members

As promised, I am following up on my message sent yesterday to provide you more details on how we will move forward in the coming weeks in a manner that is focused on what is best for the health of our students, staff and families, and for the continuation of learning.

The situation with the COVID-19 coronavirus is rapidly evolving. Last week, we were aware of three confirmed coronavirus case in our state. Now, just a week later, there are 29 confirmed cases across the state, sadly including one death in Bergen County.  The individuals affected range from 17 to 66 of age, and most of the new cases resulted from community spread.  The New Jersey Department of Health defines a community spread as person-to-person transmission without exposure to a confirmed case.  They explained a community spread indicates that the coronavirus is among us in our community.

Monday, Governor Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency and directed state agencies to use all resources necessary to prepare for and respond to the coronavirus outbreak.  Governor Murphy and the New Jersey Commissioner of Health has recommended the cancellation of all public gatherings throughout New Jersey of more than 250 individuals.  With our current student population, teachers, staff, TAs and club members we far exceed this number.   As such it seems reasonable that we act to minimize contact prior to further cases being identified. To that end, it is my intent to clarify our measured strategy moving forward.

Although there has been no reported cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus at the Monmouth Fidelity Chinese School or Marlboro Middle School, but out of an abundance of caution, the Monmouth Fidelity Chinese School Board unanimously agreed the thoughtful and prudent approach is to strategically plan our shift to remote school learning with time for students, staff and families to plan for a successful remote language learning implementation.  Below are the actions we will be taking over the coming weeks:

Saturday, March 14:

  • Monmouth Fidelity Chinese School building will be closed
  • No classes for students so we can provide training and overviews to our teachers, TA and support staff on our remote learning platform. 
  • All adult club activities are suspended

Thursday, March 19:

  • Language department staff and teachers finalize all lesson plans and length and timing of language classes.
  • Language department staff and teachers confirm parents can access our remote learning platform.

Saturday, March 21:

  • Monmouth Fidelity Chinese School building will be closed.
  • Student will begin their first day of remote language learning.
  • All adult club activities are suspended.

We understand that the remote learning approach may result in hardship for some students and parents but given the rapidly evolving situation with COVID-19 coronavirus in our community we hope you understand and support our approach.  We are currently problem-solving a situation that is new to us here at MFCS and we appreciate your patience as we work to best support the continued teaching of Chinese language and culture to our students.   We will continue to reevaluate the situation on a daily basis and plan for the coming days and weeks. The health and safety of our MFCS families is a shared responsibility and one that we take seriously. 

As always, I appreciate your patience, understanding and ongoing support in this unusual time, and I commit to providing regular updates as appropriate.

Sincerely,
Herbert Gordon

Principal, Monmouth Fidelity Chinese School
355 County Rd 520
Marlboro Township, NJ 07746
http://www.njmfcs.org