Video Description:

In the blue background on the left side of the brief animation of motion of PSD logo of yellow hands open with white roof and columns, yellow roof and door come out. On the right side, Yellow lettering of “PB’s Corner February 2022”

Fade and Peter Bailey appear. He is wearing a blue dress shirt with pattern color tie. He is sitting on the chair. Background: There is a blue wall with few frames on the wall. The file cabinet and shelf show in the background. There is a PSD logo on the bottom right corner: Blue and yellow PSD logo with 50% opacity.

Hello everyone. These are the updates for February 2022.

Imagine back to where things were in February 2020 and February 2021. We thought COVID would be long gone by now. Here we are, though, in 2022 still dealing with it. We know that COVID will be behind us soon. That doesn’t mean that it will be gone forever but we have more knowledge to be able to be more careful and cautious with it. In the meantime PSD is up and running and our staff and students are on campus every day. We also continue to monitor the guidelines from the CDC as well as the guidelines from the City of Philadelphia.

The state of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia are not working together. They are making a lot of regulations and decisions separately. Since the City of philadelphia is where we are located, we are paying attention most closely to their regulations while also keeping an eye on the guidelines from the CDC. We are doing a good job. We are monitoring the situation, keeping track of updates, and keeping the school running. I will have more updates for you on the school itself next month. In the meantime, there is no major news. Things are just running on a daily basis as normal as we can.

I do know that the big news of the day is our Bicentennial Gala. This is something we have been talking about since 2017 or 2018. We have been preparing for 2020 and a chance to celebrate our bicentennial. It has been 202 years now, because of COVID, but we are ready to celebrate our 200 year history and COVID will not stop us. The celebration is moving forward. I am excited to share that we have over 400 people registered so far. We know that there are others who would like to register and, if you plan to do that, please do it as soon as possible. If you remember, I was just talking about the City of Philadelphia, and the Gala will be held in the city. There is a new ordinance in place that anywhere that serves food – a venue, a hotel banquet room, or restaurant  – is required to have proof of vaccination for anyone who is entering. This means you must have a paper card showing your vaccine history or you can have a digital picture of your COVID vaccine on your phone. This is not a PSD regulation. This is coming from the City of Philadelphia. All of these venues and restaurants will have their own staff monitoring this and checking vaccine proof at entry. Please do not try to get around this ordinance. It is a very strict regulation for everyone entering the venue. Just be prepared with your card so you can join us in the celebration.

This Bicentennial is a huge event for the school. We are so excited to be able to celebrate the school’s legacy. Our chairperson, Bob Shilling, and the committee, have been working so hard and made so much progress in the planning of the event. It will be something to remember for years to come. We hope that you will all join us and be there for the celebration of our school and our 200 year history.

With that celebration, we know that CTV and a cable company here in Pennsylvania called the Pennsylvania Cable Network which is based in Harrisburg, has decided to do some filming of the school. They have been to campus and conducted interviews already. They will be doing some more filming at the Gala and then they will release a program at the end of March as part of Deaf History Month. Those are the updates I have to share with you so far. The Gala is our focus this month and next month we will talk about school updates. In the meantime things are going well and we hope to see you at our Bicentennial.

End with a blue background. Top PSD logo of yellow hands open with white roof and columns, yellow roof and door. White Lettering “Pennsylvania School for the Deaf” Four social media outlet logos on the bottom of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube logos. Yellow lettering “@psd1820”