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 January 2022”

Fade and Peter Bailey appear. He is wearing a gray sweatshirt with a blue dress shirt. 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. Now that it is January 2022 it is time to say Happy New Year. I hope it is a happy new year for many of you as it is here at PSD, even though it is not the way we wanted to be starting off the new year.

The school is keeping a close eye on the pandemic and as a result has decided to move to remote learning. That has been in place since January 3rd and will remain in place until we return to campus on January 18th. You may be wondering why we decided to go to remote learning. It is not because of an increase in cases here at the school or any kind of outbreak. It is because we have been keeping a close eye on the situation in Philadelphia where the numbers are spiking. Of course we also serve 39 school districts in the area and as they are impacted we have an impact as well. That includes coverage, staffing shortages, as well as transportation. As a result we have decided to stay remote for the time being. Our staff and students should feel fully safe and comfortable when they come back to campus on the 18th so we look forward to that. Over the last two years we have been looking closely at the situation as it develops. Looking ahead, from 2020 to 2021, and now to 2022, and we are just taking it a day at a time. Our staff have been wonderful. They have been really supportive of our students, staying positive, jumping in when needed and taking care of everything around the school. We have no control over what happens outside the school but we are doing everything we can to keep you protected here. We also want you to keep in mind that 97% of our staff are already fully vaccinated. The remaining 3% have either religious or medical exemptions, which is a great number. We are trying to increase the student percentage for vaccinations at this time. We will be updating you more about that. We don’t know what’s coming next with omicron but we are keeping an eye on it. There are a number of different medical opinions, and these are changing all the time, but we are going to keep our protocols in place. We are keeping health a priority as we have been doing all along. That also means that we are still not allowing visitors on campus right now. We know this time of year is typically when the numbers peak; after the holidays through November, December into January. We should see some relief from that as the numbers decline soon. I have also been getting asked some questions about our Bicentennial Gala. Yes, it will be held in Philadelphia. It is still on and we are still planning for that to be an in-person event. There are some regulations in place, primarily from the city of Philadelphia. They currently have a vaccination mandate so you will have to show your card, either the paper version or a picture, before you are allowed entrance to the Gala. This is something that is in place from the city of Philadelphia so the Crystal Tea Room does have to operate in accordance with that. We will be monitoring the situation and if you do not have a vaccine card you will not be allowed into the event. We would like to be able to continue the celebration so our plans are going forward. Thank you for bearing with us through this process and for being prepared to show your vaccine card to get entrance. If you have other questions please contact the development office, our Institutional Advancement (IA) department. Last but not least I want to extend a lot of gratitude to those of you who have supported PSD this year. Thank you for your ongoing giving in support of our annual appeal and individual gifts. Alll of that has helped us to continue to grow. We look forward to more exciting news to come including plans for a new building. Also an upcoming capital campaign which we are going to have to announce in a little while. All of those plans are underway. We are particularly excited for the new building. We did purchase the additional acre next to the campus and we hope to share with you what those plans will look like. It is an exciting time for our school in addition to the excitement of our bicentennial. That is all I have for you this month. We look forward to being in touch again in February. We hope that our plans continue to go well for our activities and sports even though they are on hold for the time being. We don’t know what is going to happen in the future but we will stay in communication with you all. Stay safe. Stay well. We will talk next month.

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”