Coronavirus
Keeping our school community healthy and safe
Learn about our 2020-21 Return-to-Learn plan.
Message from our Co-Heads
“Will we be in school–in person–this year?”
Wherever I go, that question follows. The unprecedented challenges of this COVID era requires frequent and transparent communication, and that is the purpose of this website page–to keep you posted on our latest updates.
The short answer is: that is our intention and plan.
AND to offer online learning simultaneously for those who need and choose that option.
But with daily developments and the policy changes that often result, we have to maintain flexibility, as difficult as that can be over time. Please invest the time to review our detailed 2020 Return-to-Learn plan.
No school exists in a vacuum. We are subject to the decisions by the government (Governor, Departments of Education and Public Health), by our accrediting agency (ISACS), and by our parental organization (Maharishi International University). And the input of our constituent groups: parents, guardians, students, faculty, staff, Board of Directors.
Our pledge is to stay transparent, work together with all constituents, and move forward to keep our students and faculty/staff healthy and safe while providing a strong learning experience for our students.
All the very best,
Dr. Richard Beall and Ms. Laura Valls
Maharishi School Co-Heads
The New Classroom Experience
Remote Learning for all ages
We will offer in-person classes for all ages for the 2020-21 school year. We will also offer remote learning option for grades 3-12. Read the details of our ever-evolving plan and mandatory safety protocol for the 2020-21 school year at 2020-21 Return-to-Learn.
More...
Less
Safety First
Our Daily Lives Shift
Maharishi School will follow the guidelines set by the Iowa Department of Public Health and the Center for Disease Control. All academic school buildings are open only to students and faculty/staff. We can make special arrangements for visitors: please call in advance!
More...
The dormitory is open only to boarding students and residential staff: no visitors, friends, or faculty may enter the dorm.
All students and families are asked to use social distancing guidelines and wear masks when going into public spaces.
Maharishi School shares its campus with the Maharishi International University and, therefore, complies with the MIU guidelines. All school families that leave Jefferson county as asked to self-isolate for 2 weeks upon return.
We have set up and equipped a residential facility to serve as quarantine stations for those boarding students who are sick or might possibly have been exposed to the coronavirus. Maharishi School will provide 24-hour supervision for these students.
Less
Being Vulnerable Together
Support through emotional and financial strains
We are in new territory and we are in this together. Many in our school community, students, and adults alike may experience mental health challenges during this period of isolation and many may also experience financial hardships.
More...
As an institution, we are committed to supporting our families and students. Please communicate if your student needs time with our mental health counselor or if you need an alternative tuition payment plan. We also have many community members with glorious vegetable gardens who would be happy to share.
As a community, let’s commit to providing encouragement and support for each other, especially our students’ continued engagement in Remote Learning. Then, come next school year, we will look back on this strange time and see that we responded with tenacity, perseverance, and patience. As difficult as this may be, I hope we can also remember–and share with our children–the blessings we have in this Maharishi School community:
- The safety of a small town actively practicing social distancing.
- The minimal number of confirmed cases thus far.
- The ability to continue learning, with teachers’ dedication and our access to technology.
Not everyone in our country is as fortunate.
Less
Supporting the Student through Crisis
Dear Middle and Upper School Parents,
We believe that in-person learning is the most effective and that the remote approach to learning is not ideal. However, our desire is to support each family in the way they believe best supports their children which is why we are offering both learning approaches. While some of our students have taken to screen school with aplomb and even a greater degree of confidence, others have reported that it is stressful and tiring to be on computers all day long—and that meeting their friends only virtually makes them feel their isolation more acutely. Let’s talk about the social-emotional wellbeing of our students. The stress and anxiety that adults experience are felt even more intensely by our adolescents, though they may express their feelings in ways that are hard to interpret and even downright exasperating.
As adults, we need to help our students/children reframe these challenging times in a way that is realistic, recognizes the grief and loss they are experiencing—but gives them hope for the future.
More...
Last spring, in acknowledgment of the challenge and of the emotional toll this isolation is taking, I sent links to websites outlining the Hero’s Journey as a paradigm for channeling the highs and lows of this unprecedented time into a storyline that might help transform and redeem the experience. I even included a diagram that illustrated the stages of that journey for young people.
Shortly after I sent the mail to parents and staff, I received a reply from Ed Hipp, long-time friend of the school and golf coach extraordinaire. He gave me permission to quote him here, as I believe his poetic commentary will help all of us understand that, while we did not choose the circumstances, the journey itself is a choice:
I was a wee bit surprised to see the second beat in the journey left out of the diagram: the refusal of the call.
Not a big deal …
But distinguishing the refusal of the call can help us understand a lot of our behavior and reactions,
Especially in journeys like the current one in which most folks have an emotional resistance to the adventure because they don’t feel that they chose it …
But instead, they feel to be victims in it.
Also, it might help some folks use the journey in understanding their own process …
To know that sometimes the journey is not as linear an experience as the diagram might be taken to indicate.
The journey often wanders a bit, going backward and forwards, two steps forward and one step back.
… just a couple of whimsical offerings from the peanut gallery.
Blessings, Ed Hipp
These are profound insights indeed, and I want to thank Ed for sharing them.
On a more whimsical note, I recently came across this particular version of the journey, adapted for our circumstances, and shared by the creative writing department at MIU. You can substitute your own essential item if you are not a coffee drinker:
Apologies to Ed, since even this model leaves out the right of refusal—but we must find humor where we can.
But in all seriousness, we continue to be aware of how challenging our students (and you) are finding this form of learning—and it’s no walk in the park for our teachers either. We are finding ways to switch it up through “flipped classrooms” and by using features like break-out rooms and to connect with students individually through “office hours,” even when those hours come in the evening for students who have returned to their homes in China or Korea, where time differences mean many of their most important classes happen in the middle of the night.
Stay healthy and heroic!
Warm regards,
Kaye Jacob, Academic Director
Less
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Czech
Dutch
Estonian
Filipino
French
German
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Latvian
Nepali
Persian
Portuguese
Russian
Sindhi
Spanish
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Vietnamese