2022-2023 COVID-19 Response

2022-2023 COVID-19への対応 (Japanese version)

At CAJ, our vision is to “equip students to serve Japan and the world for Christ.” Though the COVID pandemic has diminished, we are aware that we still face significant threats to community health, and we are entrusted with the responsibility of caring for students in the safest way possible, while providing a high quality, Christian education. We are also aware that we do this with faith in a sovereign and living God, who holds all things in his powerful hands.

As a school founded on the truth of God’s Word, we know that our days are in his loving care, and that our future is secure. We also realize that as those who care for children created in God’s image, we must take appropriate precautions and have common sense protocols in place, in order to educate our students in the safest and most effective ways possible.

Basic Principles

• Act with faithfulness to our vision, mission, and values.
• Prioritize the health, safety, and wellbeing of students and staff.
• Ensure hygiene and health protocols are research-based, clearly communicated, effectively implemented, and consistently enforced.
• Prefer face-to-face learning over distance learning, when it is safe to do so.
• Stay flexible to respond to changing needs and conditions.

Priorities for Safety

• Preventive health and hygiene practices (only coming to school when healthy, masks, sanitizing)
• Adequate ventilation
• Physical distancing and reduced group sizes, as necessary
• Clear communication of procedures

Communication

Because clear communication is a priority for us, we want communication with parents to be transparent and specific. To facilitate this, we will use both the CAJ announcement system and emails.

Protocols

• Come to school healthy – Parents should ensure that students are in good health, with temperatures under 37.5. We will have self-checking of temperatures at school for students, staff, and visitors.
• Masks – Masks are optional outdoors. Masks are required indoors.
• Hand sanitizing – Frequent hand sanitizing helps prevent spread of germs. We will have conveniently placed hand sanitizers all around campus.
• Ventilation – Good ventilation is essential, so classrooms will continue to have fresh air circulating.

Cases of COVID

The situation continues to change, so please be aware of current recommendations from the Japanese Health Department. CAJ will try to stay current with those recommendations.

• Parents should report any case of COVID in the family to the CAJ office.
• People who are COVID positive are responsible for identifying close contacts (https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/covid-19/qa.html#h2_6)
• Students who are COVID positive need to stay home from school for 7 days from first symptoms (or follow recommendations from health officials.)
• Students who have been in close contact with someone who is COVID positive need to stay home from school for 5 days after the last contact with the positive person unless they also test positive. Negative antigen tests on days 2 and 3 may shorten this to 3 days (or follow recommendations from health officials).

Learning Models

We will adjust our learning model to meet the safety needs of our students. Our hope is that we continue in face-to-face learning, however we are able to move to distance learning if the situation should warrant this response. We are not able to provide a distance learning environment for some students when the majority of our students will be in face-to-face learning on campus.

We understand that students may not be able to be in school for various reasons: quarantine, illness, or travel. We will do our best to support such students within our resources, but the support will be limited and not a full distance-learning option.