Dear Sunset Teachers and Parents,
Greetings
The school year of 2020-2021 starts in about three weeks, we would like to share our thoughts, proposals and decisions on how to get our school ready for the new school year under the COVID-19 pandemic, a difficult time unseen for decades and generations.
While we will continue to monitor and adapt to the changes in rules and guidelines that are handed down by the state and county authorities. The follow are matters that are specific to our school and may be of particular interest to you:
A. Our Goals During the Pandemic
As we stated in the past, we want to achieve the following three goals during the COVID-19 pandemic seasons:
1) to safely provide high quality services to family who need it;
2) to provide employment and a safe work environment to our teachers
3) to keep the financial losses at bay so we can be financially viable when the pandemic is over.
These three goals are the guiding principles in everything we do. As you read on, please keep these goals in mind as they provide the rationales behind our decisions.
B. Voluntary Reduction of Capacity
Safety of our students and our faculty is our first priority, and reducing the group size will enhance safety. For this reason, we will voluntarily reduce our capacity by about 50%. The following table lists the capacity in each room, both licensed and voluntarily reduced.
| Classroom | Licensed Capacity | Reduced Capacity |
| Cubs | 10 | 5 |
| Teddies | 10 | 5 |
| Koala I | 10 | 5 |
| Koala II | 10 | 5 |
| Panda I | 10 | 7 |
| Panda II | 10 | 7 |
| Polar Bears | 30 | 15 |
| Brown Bears | 30 | 15 |
| Black Bears | 30 | 15 |
| Grizzlies | 40 | 15 |
These are the maximum number of students we will put in each room. Our actual numbers at the beginning of the school year are far less than this set
C. Our Current Enrollment and Staffing Situation: Status and Policy
Before the pandemic started, the school had 145 students and 30 teachers on payroll. When we re-opened on May 11, we had 27 children. The attendance has climbed back since then and today we have about 60 children, with 18 teachers on payroll.
On August 18, when new school year starts, about 20 Black Bear kids will move on to kindergarten, that will leave our enrollment at about 40 students, less than 30% of the number of students prior to the pandemic.
The actual number might be higher as we will restart our Private Kindergarten Program (details on this below), and some of students who may decide to stay on.
Enrollment is expected to grow somewhat through the next year but we intend to reduce our capacity voluntarily by about 50% until the pandemic is over.
On the other hand, despite of the drop in enrollment, we intend to keep all 18 teachers current working on payroll. That is about 60% of our total workforce prior to the pandemic. As the enrollment grows, we will bring more teachers back. We cherish the very best team we have assembled and would love to see this team at the other end of the pandemic.
D. Restart Private Kindergarten Program
Sunset Academy had a private Kindergarten Program in the past, but we stopped the offering as the public schools expanded its Kindergarten programs about two year ago.
However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the public schools’ Kindergarten programs leave so much to be desired in terms of safety and availability, therefore, we decided to step in to help the parents who have difficulty in accepting the public schools’ solution.
This is not a temporary measure, like everything else we do, we are aiming at creating a top-notch kindergarten program that have staying power even after the pandemic.
Here is some basic information:
- Days and Time: Full time only, Monday through Friday, 7:30AM to 4:30PM
- Tuition Rate: $246/week
- Maximum Capacity: 15 students
- Teacher: Ms. Guoli Gan
- Curriculum: The Creative Curriculum for Kindergarten
Enrollment has already started for this program, please email us to reserve your space.
E. Before- and After- School Program
Sunset always had an excellent Before- and After-school program prior to the pandemic. During the pandemic, we have our reservations of transporting children around, however, our responsibility to our community calls us to continue servicing our existing customers with the following limitations:
- We only support families who have students in the program already.
- New transportation rules and regulations, such as only one student per row of seats, could severely limit how many students we can take.
- We will provide services within the 7:30AM to 4:30PM time span. Please mind the afternoon hours and pick up your child before 4:30pm.
- Some schools only provide 50% in-person learning and 50% remote learning. We are not in a position to take care of your child during the 50% remote learning days.
- As the Before- and After-School program and Private Kindergarten share the same classroom, the combine enrollment will not exceed 15. If we have 15 kids enrolled in the Private Kindergarten, we may have to suspend the Before- and After-School altogether
F. New Curriculum
Sunset Academy has invested over $11,000 recently in The Creative Curriculum from Teaching Strategies, covering Infants, Toddlers, Preschool, and Kindergarten. This Curriculum and Assessment suite is the same as that used by St Vrain Valley School District for its own Early Childhood/Preschool program (see https://www.svvsd.org/about/departments/early-childhood). It will best prepare our students for the public schools in SVVSD ahead.
We will share more about this curriculum in the future, or you can read more about it on the Teaching Strategies website.
Our teachers are getting ready, and we will roll out the new curriculum and assessment suite at the start of new school year.
G. Tuition Increase
We are proposing a roughly 5% increase in tuition for the school year of August 2020 to August 2021, beginning on Monday August 17, 2020. Please see the attached for the new rate table.
We feel the rate increase is much needed so that:
- we can give our teachers a pay raise, solidifying our position as the wage leader in the industry in the city
- we can operate at a voluntarily reduced capacity
- we can continue to improve our quality by investing in new curriculum, and by improving our classroom and playground environment
- and most importantly, we can remain solvent through the pandemic
After the tuition increase, our 2020-2021 rates are still about 5% less than the rates charged in 2018-2019 by schools in Longmont of comparable quality.
We have discussed many issues while trying to keep this letter brief. If you have any questions or concerns, please reply to this email or call us at 303-651-6600 and we will be happy to address your specific concerns.
Sincerely yours
Nina Emmer, Director, Sunset Academy
Eric Kuang, PhD, President and Owner, Sunset Academy