March 20, 2020

Dear Sun Valley Community School Families:

The Board of Trustees met this morning, and I thought it would be helpful to reach out to the community and share with you what we have been doing and provide you our perspective on the situation in which we find ourselves. 

As I sat down to write this letter, I looked back in my email inbox, and the first mention of the coronavirus I found in my SVCS folder was a note from Ben three weeks ago. He was asking me to join a meeting of our Crisis Management Team on March 2. At this point, I can’t tell if it feels like it was only yesterday that the world was normal, or if it was a year ago. What I can tell you is how lucky we all are to have the team of professionals who run our school at this moment of crisis. Over the past three weeks, members of the Board’s Executive Committee and I have been in constant dialog with Ben and his senior leadership team. They have been nothing short of spectacular.  Under Ben’s leadership, this team has moved from conceptual contingency planning at the beginning of the month, to active planning 10 days ago, to action this week. On the daily Crisis Management Team calls, they have been calm, professional, and they have demonstrated extraordinary grace and grit. Every one of the school’s stakeholders—students, parents, fellow teachers, staff, and administrators—are in good hands. 

The question we are all asking, “Where to from here?” can only be partially answered. There is so much that is not knowable. What we do know is that when Spring Break ends on April 6, every teacher at every grade level will be ready to deliver remote education to our children. While we all know there will be bumps along the way, I expect that the product we deliver will be exceptional. As many of you know, we have been providing remote educational resources to our traveling SVSA athletes for nine years now, and each year that product has improved with experience. That knowledge informs what we plan to roll out school-wide next month and gives us a head start over almost every other day school in the country. Ben has shared a calendar for the coming weeks with you, and the Board is in complete alignment with this plan.

I want to let you know that the Finance Committee is also engaged with Ben and Julie. The school is in healthy financial shape overall, and for the past three years we have been planning for a rainy day. That day has arrived. The Finance Committee feels good about our financial condition and your continued support is appreciated deeply. The Finance Committee will remain engaged with Ben, Julie, and the leadership team as we plan for next year.  

On a personal note, let me share a story with all of you about my family and our journey to becoming members of the Sun Valley Community School family. In the spring of 2003 we were living in Hong Kong with four elementary school age children. That was the year that the SARS epidemic struck. The schools closed on short notice. No one had any idea what was going to happen next. After a week of confusion and fear, my wife and children moved to our summer home in Ketchum. I joined them a week later. After two weeks of “remote learning” (which looked a lot more like homeschooling with lesson plans that were delivered via fax machine), we decided to enroll the kids in school here. Within a week, we decided to move to Ketchum full time. We applied to Community School and a year later, in the fall of 2004, the Shafran family became Cutthroats. As the Coronavirus began its spread in January, there was an eerie familiarity. I have shared stories of that time with Ben, and it has helped us prepare for the inevitable school closure. While I can’t make predictions for how this will end, in my heart I know that good things happened to my family from a scary pandemic, and I hold hope that we will all leave this chapter with something new and good.

It is during times of crisis that we learn about the true strength of our institutions. This is true for government agencies, for-profit corporations, and not-for-profits. Our school is no exception. On behalf of all of board members, I want you to know that we feel the Sun Valley Community School will emerge from this crisis stronger than we were on the first of the year.  Ben and his team are committed to delivering excellence to every stakeholder and they have the full support of the Board. Please feel free to reach out to me or any other Board member if you have questions or thoughts.

All the best,

Steve Shafran, Board Chair