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November 5, 2021
Month of the Holy Souls in Purgatory
The Year of St. Joseph
Dear Catholic School Communities,
With Thanksgiving and Christmas within sight, the holiday travel period is fast approaching. As you make plans for your family, you will undoubtedly be doing so with an eye on the COVID travel guidelines determined by government health officials at the federal and state levels.
While those and many other areas of guidance have evolved, one fact has remained consistent, almost without exception, any positive COVID cases associated with our school communities have been related to outside school activities, sports, social gatherings and travel. You have been trustworthy and reliable partners in keeping our schools – our children - safe by remaining rigorously faithful to our protocols and guidelines.
Therefore, as many of you begin making holiday travel plans, I provide the following update regarding the domestic and international travel requirements of the Office of the Superintendent of Schools. While we suggest you follow the CDC recommendations for international and domestic travel, moving forward, Catholic elementary schools within the Archdiocese of New York will only require a negative PCR or Rapid COVID-19 test for those who travel internationally before returning to school. All other CDC travel recommendations are suggested, not required. We do, however, encourage everyone who travels or engages in the above activities to consider being tested as a precaution on a regular basis. Vaccination remains the best way to protect yourself and your child from COVID-19. We will entrust these decisions to our parents.
The responsible choices of our families – our reliable partners – in these next several weeks will continue to keep our school communities safe, will avoid the spike in positive cases experienced after the last Thanksgiving and Christmas season and will determine what protocols and procedures need to remain in place well into the early spring.
As always, I am thankful beyond measure for your continued support and partnership.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Deegan
Superintendent of Schools
Archdiocese of New York