On Tuesday, May 10, 2022, the LFDCS Poetry Club had its Poetry Celebration to celebrate its months of poetry learning.

Every week seventh and eighth grade students in the club read, wrote and discussed poetry. Students learned about different forms of poetry and wrote within the rules of different formats. The vocabulary specific to poetry was also a weekly topic.

The culminating project was creating a The Color of Poetry, a coloring book for young children. After reading poems written for young children, students tried writing one and found that it is not so easy! The coloring book consists of a poem written by each student and a poem selected from collections of young children’s poetry books. Each poem was accompanied by a line drawing for children to color.

They were excited to see the book published with enough copies to give one to each child at the Academy.

April 28, 2022

On February 28, 2022, Massachusetts made masks optional in schools; however, you may recall that LFDCS extended its mask mandate until April 22, 2022. In the meantime, on April 18, 2022, federal policy removed masking requirement on public transportation, including school busses. As of April 4, 2022, mask mandates have ended in almost every school district in Massachusetts, and we are also removing the mask mandate at LFDCS based on the following circumstances:

• Low positivity rates at LFDCS (our latest round of pool testing only identified one positive case)
• Low positivity rates in Lawrence and in Massachusetts
• High vaccination rates in Essex County (74% of total population, 78.5% of population 5 years and older, 81.5% of population 12 years and older are fully vaccinated and more than 56% of those populations are also boosted)
• Unvaccinated or otherwise immunocompromised individuals wear masks in school buildings, on school grounds and on school busses, even when social distancing is observed
• Individuals who are fully vaccinated are not required to wear a mask, but may do so if desired
• Please do not send your children to school if they are exhibiting COVID symptoms; instead, immediately seek PCR testing outside of school and report the results to the school

As of Monday, May 2, 2022, masks will no longer be universally required indoors in our school settings and on our school busses. Nevertheless, we strongly urge that you follow these recommendations:

Students should still bring masks to school, as they will be required under the following circumstances: 

• Masks will still be required in health offices (per Department of Public Health requirements)
• Masks will still be required for individuals testing as COVID-positive and returning to school from isolation on day 6 or later through day 10 (per DPH and CDC protocols)
• For athletic events and some other activities, mask rules are up to host school or venue

LFDCS will continue conducting the weekly COVID Pool Testing until the end of the school year.

If you have any questions with regard to our updated mask policy or pool testing, please contact your child’s Head of School. We sincerely thank you for your patience, cooperation and support as we navigated through the complex guidelines and changing circumstances around masking requirements.

Sincerely,

Darshan Thakkar, Phd, JD, Assistant Superintendent