written by Tami Limberg, LA Program Director
For this May newsletter, your Lower Adolescent Bike Trip planning team really needs to reiterate upcoming dates and plans.
All 7th -9th-grade students are invited (though not required, due to COVID) on our final key experience of the year. We'll embark on a 5 day, 100-mile bike trip across western Wisconsin and really work on personal perseverance on this physical challenge, but also a shared interdependence - no student can get through this bike trip on their own.
Students will take 1 of 2 trips:
The first trip leaves on June 3rd and returns June 8th. They will have a half-day on June 9th for trip recovery and clean-up.
The second trip leaves on June 4th and returns June 9th. They will have a half-day on June 3rd for trip preparation.
All students will have a half-day for our end-of-the-year ceremonies and celebrations on June 10.
To help prepare, if caregivers have not done the following, please do so.
1. Watch the Bike Trip Orientation Video (slide deck)
2. Fill out the Bike Trip Readiness Survey. (if you need to borrow a bike, here's where you tell us that)
3. Get your student's bike tuned up either at a local shop or at GRS Ridey Tighty Bike Shop (as spaces are available)
4. Be sure we have your medical forms (Prescription and Non Prescription) at the front office. We can't give your student even tylenol without these forms. You can return these forms to the front office or Dan Wilder (dwilder@greatriverschool.org).
5. Know when your student is biking at school on Wednesdays (see the Orientation Video for more information).
6. Review the packing list.
If you are not receiving emails from Tami Limberg LA Program Director about these items, please reach out! We want to make this experience as easy as possible.
As we all continue getting more accustomed to living with Covid, we're taking precautions seriously. We strongly encourage a Covid PCR test 3 days prior to the trip (and we're working on making that happen through the school if possible) and we'll require a negative antigen test the morning of (we'll take them at school). We'll wear masks on the buses and will follow the guidelines that we follow in school. We'll stay with one tent group for the duration of the trip. We've also reduced tent capacity. Students that show symptoms on the trip will take an antigen test and be sent home if they are positive. We know that this doesn't meet every family's needs, and we're not going to be able to. We are trying to live out Great River School's mission and commitment to key experiences.
We will make every possible effort to go on these trips. Aligning with our school’s mitigation strategy, if Ramsey County were to go into the high Community Level category, we would require masking, but try to adapt our key experience to be as COVID-safe as possible. In the upsetting situation where COVID-19 case counts would cause us to cancel the key experience, students would need to make up those instructional hours and the school year would be extended further into June.