To Our Stuart Hall Family:

As we watch the calendar move deeper into May, the days in our 2019-2020 school year have come to an end. This is a school year that will be remembered forever.

These are uncertain times that called for an unprecedented approach to learning for our boys. We introduced a remote learning platform within days. Our families changed their schedules and habits as each of you adjusted to a new way to learn and share. As we close out the 2019-2020 school year, our sincerest appreciation goes to Dr. Reuter, Mrs. d’Hemecourt and Mrs. Maurin and each of our faculty members, whose dedication to our sons revealed itself in even larger ways during these last weeks.

Thank you to each of our young men and our parents for your patience, prayer and persistence.

In recent days, we have all spent time trying to make sense of how we can begin returning to our churches, our careers, our businesses and in many cases, to seeing our loved ones again. We, too, have thought these same thoughts and received questions about Stuart Hall and the 2020-21 school year. What will the new school year look like? Will our campus reopen? What modifications are we making for classroom learning and student interaction?

Our steadfast goal is to have the Stuart Hall campus open for all of our boys when the 2020-21 school year commences Aug. 12. Like tens of thousands of businesses and organizations in our community, we are working to figure out how we can best accomplish this goal while our entire community moves through the phases of reopening. This is what we do know right now:

State and city health officials are providing information to schools and businesses related to the reopening of campuses. We are digesting all of this information and outlining how we might modify our physical campus and daily policies and procedures to meet these guidelines.
Stuart Hall has renewed the contracts for all of our faculty and staff in anticipation of on-campus learning beginning, Wednesday, Aug. 12.
Stuart Hall School leadership, including our school division heads, are outlining potential revisions to in-classroom learning layouts, scheduling, and curriculum planning for all grades, and student gathering protocols for schoolwide events, such as Monday Chapel and First Fridays.
The Facilities Committee of the Board of Trustees is assisting with identifying the potential health and safety needs for our physical campus.
The Independent Schools Association of the Southwest/ISAS, the National Association of Independent Schools/NAIS and the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ Office of Catholic Schools are all developing and sharing best practices for school reopening to assist in developing and revising policies in anticipation of the 2020-21 school year.
As announced recently, the Board of Trustees unanimously voted to double our annual pool of funds available for need-based financial assistance in the 2020-2021 school year. Any Stuart Hall family in need is eligible and may apply for assistance in the coming school year. In addition, we revised the tuition payment plan for families in the 2020-21 school year.

We assure you that everyone affiliated with Stuart Hall is working with the same goal in mind – reopening Stuart Hall for all of our boys at the scheduled start of the 2020-21 school year, Wednesday, Aug. 12. We want to accomplish this goal while doing our best to ensure the health and safety of our young men, our faculty and staff.

As our plans come into more specific focus in the coming days and weeks, we pledge, in conjunction with our Board, to offer timely updates as the procedures for our reopening take shape further.

In the meantime, thank you all again for the support you have shown for your sons and for Stuart Hall during this unprecedent time. We continue to pray daily for the health, safety, and well-being of our families and every member of our school community.

Sincerely,

Kevin Avin
Head of School

Ryan Gootee
Chair, Board of Trustees

Parents may find more information on Stuart Hall School’s response on the Resource Board on myKnights.