Pandemic Response Team Reopens Facilities

By  Evan Gonzalez, Tina Huang and Amy Lum

Last Tuesday, the Academy’s Pandemic Response Team decided to reopen the Roger Nekton Pool for student use. In the past week, restrictions for various athletic and music groups have also loosened.

The team’s members, including Principal William Rawson, Medical Director Dr. Katharina Lilly, Athletics Director Jason Basedon and other administrators, faculty and staff gather to discuss the pandemic response two to three times a week. “We look at the national situation, the situation within other local schools and then our own community,” Baseden said.

In preparation for the pool reopening, the team allowed a seven-week trial period during the summer for on-campus faculty members, where only one person was allowed to swim in each lane. 

For now, students who want to swim recreationally or outside of practice can complete a form sent by Aquatics Manager Kathryn D’Ambrosio to sign up for hour-long time slots throughout the term. These times range from 6a.m. to 3p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 8a.m. to 3p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays. Before entering the pool, swimmers must wear their masks and have their temperatures taken and are only allowed to swim one per lane. Because the locker room is no longer available for use, students must also enter the gym wearing their swimsuits.

To ensure safety in and around the pool, D’Ambrosio followed guidelines and recommendations from USA Swimming and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Frequently touched areas will be disinfected after each person swims. “We are maintaining a record of everyone who swims and the times they come in to enable contact tracing if necessary,” D’Ambrosio said.

Aquatic sports teams, including Girls’ Water Polo, are excited to practice in the pool instead of outdoors with masks on. However, team captain and senior Ursie Wise mentioned the challenges that come with the pool’s restrictions.“We aren’t wearing masks [in the pool], so we’re not supposed to be talking to each other too closely,” Wise said. “I used to love talking to people while we were kicking, and it’s harder to do that now.”

Sports teams practicing outside of the athletic center have also enjoyed many loosened restrictions. Members of the crew, cross country, and cycling teams are now able to practice without a mask on.

“We’re looking at sports as individual entities,” says Baseden. “Certain sports have more flexibility and functionality through COVID-19 than others [...] For sports like crew, where everyone is in their own boat, [exercising without a mask] is less of an issue than athletes on the cross-country and cycling teams, who have to be a little more mindful.”

These new freedoms have allowed teams to return to a greater sense of normalcy. “Practices now look similar to our sessions in past seasons, with the exception of location,” Cross Country coach Brandon said.  “We are still restricted by the property lines of the Academy, however, which means that we are unable to access some of our primary training venues.” 

Now, Cross Country runners do not need to wear their masks after entering the woods. To provide extra caution, students are assigned “families,” groups of four to six people who run together. Each group runs in a different direction to prevent unnecessary contact, and, within each group, students are still required to be six to ten feet apart. 

For the first two weeks following the arrival of underclassmen on Oct. 3, team members that arrived in September and October will be separated. The October group will meet at the track, and the September group will meet at the fields. “Contact between groups will be limited,” senior Meredith Thomas said. “Hopefully, we will be able to have team bonding, and we’re going to do a buddy system down the line between upperclassmen and lowerclassmen.” For now, the team is focusing on staying safe and maintaining distance between runners.

 Many music groups have also had an increase in flexibility. The Forrestal Bowld Music Center has opened for some orchestra students to meet in-person, but masks and social distancing is still required. Only the strings section is allowed to meet, while those playing wind instruments are still restricted to Zoom. 

“Chamber Orchestra rehearsal at the beginning of the term was not too productive,” upper Alana Reale said. “We can’t play music simultaneously over Zoom. We met to discuss the piece we’re playing, and we started to practice along with recordings, but couldn’t properly play together.”

Members of Concert Choir are now allowed to practice outdoors, underneath the tent near the Lamont Art Gallery. However, only ten students may be present at the same time, and those who do not meet as a group can practice individually during their asynchronous blocks. October arrivals are not permitted to join these in-person practices until Oct. 17, exactly two weeks after they arrived.

Students in practice rooms are now allowed to take off their mask when alone.

While there are still many restrictions to in-person meetings, Wise believes that the Girls’ Water Polo team can stay safe under the circumstances. “It’s a lot of responsibility for everybody on the team to have the opportunity to be in the pool together without masks on… [There’s] a lot of weight on our shoulders to make sure that we don’t mess that up, but I think that’s a growing experience,” Wise said. “I know that the team, both the Water Polo team and the Swim team are full of responsible people, and I think that we can handle it.”