Grand Rapids Christian Schools Reopening Plans: Phase 1

Dear GRCS Parents,

I hope you are all enjoying some relaxing time with your family and have stayed cool during the recent heatwave. As you do, I am sure you are excited to learn more about Grand Rapids Christian’s plan for reopening and welcoming students back to school on August 19.

Please rest assured that our administrators and staff have been hard at work over the last two months preparing our reopening plan. While drafting our plan, we have stayed in close contact with local, state, and federal health officials to make sure our plans adhere to all required and recommended guidelines and protocols. In addition, we used the parent survey responses to inform our plans. We also have reviewed Governor Whitmer’s Return to School Roadmap, announced on June 30, to make sure our plan aligns with her executive order.

I do want to pause and thank the nearly 70% of our families who took the time to complete the most recent parent survey. Our partnership with parents is an integral part of Grand Rapids Christian Schools. Please know we listened, and your input played an important role in this process. 

Our goal, along with 90% of parents who responded, is to have students on campus for in-person instruction using routines and structures to manage safety. Our region is currently in Phase 4 of the MI Safe Start Plan. As long as we remain in Phase 4 or higher, students will be allowed on campus. Therefore, our plan is to reopen and have all students on our campuses starting August 19, and we have established strict health and safety protocols to keep students and staff as safe as possible.

We are excited to share our plan with you and have prepared a series of videos to explain the plan and show you some of the preparations that are already underway to get ready for the start of school. We hope you enjoy the videos and also get a glimpse into the amount of work that has already been done and will continue over the remaining weeks of summer break.

Watch the Videos

Public and nonpublic schools are required to submit a COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan, which is currently under development. We will be compiling this and other documents over the next couple of weeks that will provide additional details and will serve as a reference guide for parents and staff over the next school year.

We will email you those documents, and they will also be available on our website, along with these videos, for you to reference at any time.

We are excited to have students back on our campuses. We’ve missed them. We commit to doing everything we can to keep them safe while they are on campus and to making the transition back as smooth as possible. But we can’t do this alone. We need your help.

Please review these videos and the documents that come out over the next few weeks. Talk to your children about going back to school. We hope they are as excited to come back as we are to have them! While we will do all we can to make school as “normal” as possible, help students understand that a few things will look a little different. Lord willing, the changes will only be temporary and are intended to keep them and their teachers safe.

If you have any questions about our reopening plans, please reach out to your building principal or me. We welcome the opportunity to respond and provide further explanation to address any concerns you may have.

Thank you again for your continued partnership with Grand Rapids Christian Schools. We look forward to seeing you on August 19.

Sincerely,

Tom DeJonge
Superintendent, Grand Rapids Christian Schools