Mathnasium of Tallahassee and Navigating Covid-19 - Posted March 12

Lisa and I wanted to take a moment to reach out regarding the shared situation we find ourselves in and how Mathnasium of Tallahassee and our team, with your help, patience and understanding, are navigating Covid-19. 

When each new student enrolls with us, we always say “thank you for becoming a member of the Mathnasium of Tallahassee family.” We think of your children, your families, and our instructor team as our big family. It is through that lens that we examine every aspect of what we do here.  Under today’s circumstances, that is no different.  It is our responsibility to help ensure the safety and well-being of our students, their families and our instructor team -- our big Mathnasium of Tallahassee family.

As many of you know and are aware of from being in the center, since the day we opened, we have always worked to disinfect surfaces, supplies, pencils, teaching manipulatives, student binders, the spin wheel, etc., on a daily basis. And, the hand sanitizer has always flowed freely.  However, like many others, we have also stepped up our game on this front. 

Beyond that though, and as the situation evolves, we are taking additional steps both here at the center and to accommodate our families who would like to transition from our in-center instruction to our Mathnasium @Home instruction option, which is offered via online video conferencing.

First, we want to make sure our families are aware of our Mathnasium @Home instruction option, where students experience their sessions through an online video conference platform.  This has been available for our families since June 2019.  During this time, if you’d like to transition your student to this instruction option we can accommodate that.  In the future, they can easily transition back to in-center. We can even do temporary @Home instruction for students who are sick with a cold or flu and need to recuperate before returning to the center for instruction.  

• @Home sessions are a facsimile of your student’s experience at the center, including both their Mathnasium learning plan and homework help. 

• A Mathnasium of Tallahassee instructor, based at our center here, works with your child through a video conference platform. Both the student and the instructor are seeing the same material at the same time. The student “writes” on the virtual whiteboard and has their session face-to-face, in real time, with our instructor.

• For homework, we ask that you simply take a picture of the material and email it to us. We then upload it into the system, and again, both the student and the instructor are looking at the material and working together. 

• The main difference with @Home sessions is we do ask that those be scheduled.  However, we make that flexible. You can set up the schedule for a week, create a session that day, or even set recurring sessions, etc.

At the center, we are adjusting the Mathnasium of Tallahassee experience to reduce “shared touch points.”  Currently, this includes but is not limited to:

• We have removed the pencil container from the tables and all students will have personal pencils in their binders. 

• Students no longer check in and check out on the touchscreen tablet.  Our team will take care of that for them. 

• We have removed the wheel for students to spin after successfully completing a mastery check. They can still earn their bonus reward card stars, but we will do it through a “pick a card” option. Students will not handle the cards, only instructors will.

• We will be limiting the types of games used so students are not handling items together before they can be properly sanitized again.  

• Removing the games from our game table at the front of the center.

• Implementing a “look but don’t touch” policy for our reward cabinet. 

We also request that if your child is not feeling well -- cold, flu, etc. -- please keep them home and give them enough time to feel better and be symptom free before returning to the center.  As shared, we can still accommodate their instruction through our @Home option until they are ready to return. 

Per the CDC, children infected with Covid-19 typically have milder symptoms, or none at all.   But we also know, beyond our students, we need to be mindful about their homes … parents, grandparents, and other relatives who may be in a higher risk category.

As the situation progresses, we will continue to keep you updated on any changes that we may need to implement for our operations. 

Every day, we feel privileged to have you and your children in our lives.  Tallahassee is our home. We are raising our son here, who is finishing his junior year of high school.  It is our honor to serve you and our community and we look forward to seeing you at the center or online with Mathnasium @Home. 

If we can ever answer any questions, please don’t hesitate…

Thank You

Lisa and Doug