• Starting the year, we will invite a reduced number of boarders to campus in order to establish our health and safety framework. This staggered approach to assigning housing rooms will allow us to get settled initially at slightly more than half capacity while also reducing the congestion normally associated with the start of school.
• After some time, students in these groups may be able to socialize, eat, and work together, potentially with relaxed protection guidelines.
• In order to maintain the integrity of family groups for boarders for the first few weeks of school, there will be no off-campus travel, no overnight permissions, and only the boarders of a particular House and associated faculty and staff will be allowed in that House.

Our plan is to add more boarders to these House “family groups” over time and as appropriate while maintaining our health and safety expectations around bathrooms and community living.

We ask that local boarders within 30 miles of campus begin the year as temporary day students. Students may come to campus as day students or may participate in remote learning. For those who want to board on campus or who will have difficulty commuting to Southborough, we will manage a waiting list and prioritize as best we can as we stagger the arrival of local students and delayed international students. Our goal is to provide the opportunity for all boarders to be back on campus.

We will be in touch later this summer to inquire about your plans and availability to get back to campus. This information will assist in creating a systematic approach to housing assignments.

St. Mark’s housekeeping staff will conduct a thorough daily cleaning in the common areas of the Houses following the best sanitizing practices.

• Day students will be expected to check in on their arrival at designated Day Student areas on campus to confirm daily health check submission.
• With access to Houses limited to each House’s residents and other usual spaces unavailable for between-class lounging, we will convert several spaces on campus for students to congregate between classes.
• Days students are asked to leave campus after athletics, with potential exceptions for participation in evening events.

• We are working with FLIK, our dining provider, to ensure that the safest cleaning and serving practices will be used. The dining services staff will undergo proper PPE training, undergo new protocols including temperature and symptom screening, and add touchless serving machines in the servery, among other changes.
• We anticipate that food service will include “grab and go” options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. During our first stages, self-service buffet and salad stations will not be available.
• Students will eat at predetermined times, with time built into the schedule to clean between each rotation. Students will be scheduled to eat in a variety of spaces including the Dining Hall, their Houses, and other designated meeting places.
• More details of the dining experience will be shared prior to student arrival in September.

• After-school and evening activities, including community service, theater, and student clubs and organization meetings, will take place but will look different, given the need to comply with social distancing guidelines.
• On weekends, we will continue to provide opportunities to gather and to get off-campus (adhering to our health and safety guidelines). More activities will be held outdoors.
• In order to limit exposure to the full community, we will likely be restricting students’ ability to leave campus and asking day students and non-residential faculty and staff to limit their interactions with others off-campus. While we are continuing to update our plans based on recommendations and mandates we receive from state and local governments, which we will continue to update throughout the coming months.