Dear HLC Family Members,

This has been one of the hardest years for all of us, both individually as well as a family of HLCites. We've never been in a situation like this before; what's even worse is that we know very little about 2021 either. And honestly, it isn't going to be soon or simple to go back to any form of normal. The best and brightest scientists that are monitoring this terrible virus are saying that we will need to take pandemic precautions well into 2021 — yes, even after a vaccine arrives.

It is prudent to accept this reality and take steps to meet it rather than deny their message. With that in mind, we considered our options.

Clearly, we cannot do in 2020-21 all of what we normally did in earlier years. All the wonderful things you cherish about HLC and the reasons for which you continue to educate your children with us year after year have mostly been absent this year. There has been very little or no social, moral, emotional, aesthetic and physical development for our children in the past 6 months that we could visibly observe and this may continue to be the case until we return to without-restrictions in-person learning, whenever that is.

So what do we do then? We had proposed MY TIME, one way in which, as experts, we could address the learning and developmental losses of our children as a result of moving to remote-only learning mode so abruptly. Over the meetings we held with the entire HLC family in the past 2 days, however, two points emerged:

1. Everyone would like the learning gaps, if any, to be addressed within existing timeframes
2. Every parent has ideas and strategies that are working, so it is better to collate them for the benefit all HLCites.

So this is what we will do: Gather information from you to understand all the at-home activities you are engaging the children in, what you believe the children like in the current remote-only learning mode, and what concerns you, if any, about your child's development and learning. We will then share the responses with all of you and attempt to address any learning gaps, by grade groups, within the existing timeframes.

Stay safe. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Sincerely,
Naveen Mahesh
Director and Managing Trustee