Head’s Lines: Ask the Doctor - Dr Erik After a positive response about the information shared by Dr Erik, we open the floor to your questions via a Google Form. Dr Erik will do his best to provide some clarity and reassurance about this challenging situation which we all face. Also, STA families are taking up the chance to collect their four weeks worth of free ATKs kits, ID badges and get prepared for coming back to school. Finally, our staff’s level of full vaccination will soon be over 96% and see the latest update about safely reopening facilities. 

Since Dr Erik's answers to our FAQs were so well-received,  he has generously offered to answer more of our community's questions.  Also, STA families have been collecting their four weeks' worth of free ATKs and picking up ID badges in preparation for coming back to school very soon. Finally, our staff will soon be over 96% fully vaccinated so that we're one step closer to safely reopening our facilities. 

We have received such a positive response about the information shared by Dr Erik Fleischman about COVID-19 in last week’s newsletter. Many individuals expressed their thanks for getting such practical, measured and non-inflammatory information about how to deal with this virus which has caused such upheaval worldwide. As a further service to our community, Dr Erik has generously offered to provide even more pertinent insights into COVID-19 and how to deal with the many related matters that you may be worried about. If you have a question on this topic that you would like Dr Erik to answer, then please submit your question on this Google form. Dr Erik will then do his best to provide some clarity and reassurance about this challenging situation which we all face. We will share his responses through future newsletters.

I would also like to personally thank Dr Erik for this kind and thoughtful offer of assistance to our school community.

Picking up ATKs for Students

Many families have been seizing the opportunity to come to school and collect the ATKs we are offering for our students in preparation of our physical reopening of campus. There has also been the option to buy new school uniforms, as well as purchase additional ATKs and other products from the Boots booth that has been set up at Primary School. Boots even had their pharmacist on hand to answer questions from parents about the range of healthy products they had on display.

Vaccinations

This week we will have over 200 staff getting their second round of vaccinations from MedPark Hospital staff. This will take our staff’s level of full vaccination to over 96%, which will hopefully give everyone more confidence about remaining safe and healthy while on campus.   

Also this week, our High School families have the opportunity to have their 12- to 18-year-old children vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine at MedPark Hospital or with the Sinopharm vaccine at Chulabhorn Hospital. The goal here is to help protect our students from developing serious complications from COVID-19 infection, which along with the ATK screening, mask-wearing and social distancing, will keep everyone safe once we have the approval to open.

School Reopening

Our school reopening plan, shared with everyone in last week's newsletter, has been accepted by OPEC, BMA and the MoPH. We are now awaiting for their representatives to come to school and inspect our preparations before finally giving us approval to open. It would be fantastic if we are able to start the phased reopening of school immediately after the half-term break, which would be a great first step towards ensuring a positive start to the second half of this first term. 

It is essential for planning interior seating arrangements and teachers’ lesson plans to know precisely how many students will be returning to school for in-class learning and how many will be staying at home to continue learning online through the VSE. If you have not already completed the survey, please do so as soon as possible. This information will be used to ensure that everyone who is returning to school is on the seating plans for every class and subject. It also ensures that we will be able to continue to cater fully for those VSE students choosing to remain at home.

We shall certainly update the entire school community as soon as we have more information about the upcoming  reopening of our school.

For parents with enquiries, please contact support@standrews.ac.th. You can also call the Primary School directly at +66 2 381-2387-8 or the High School at +66 2 056-9555.