Illness Policy

Students get sick. This is an ongoing fact of childhood that never changes. In our post-Covid world, I am more sensitive to the idea of containing contagious illnesses regardless of the variety. Please understand that I have medically fragile people in my life. What can be a mildly inconvenient cold in a healthy student could be passed on and turn to pneumonia in someone with a weakened immune system. Because of this, I try to keep illness transmission as low as possible in my studio by cleaning my piano, having additional ventilation, and having a hand-washing and illness policy.

All students will either use the hand sanitizer or wash their hands at my studio before their lesson. Please let me know if your child has an allergy to soap/fragrance, an aversion to handwashing, or a skin condition on their hands like eczema and we can make a personal hand-hygiene plan together.

Please have your child wear a mask to his or her lesson if:

  1. Your child has a mild cough, but is feeling energetic and healthy enough to attend school.
  2. There are people in your home who are ill with influenza or Covid and it’s possible your child may be contagious, but is not yet showing symptoms
  3. If your child has a serious aversion to or is unable to wear a mask but has a mild yet contagious illness, please let me know so I can wear a mask during that lesson.

You do not need to inform me ahead of time if your child will be coming to his or her lesson in a mask. I do have child-sized disposable masks available, so please ask if you need one. I will also wear a mask if your child does. Thank you for understanding!

Please keep your child home from lessons if:

  1. Your child has active symptoms such as frequent coughing (multiple times an hour), has a runny nose, headache, fever, chills, sore throat, digestive symptoms like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, etc…. If you wouldn’t send them to school, then please keep them at home.

Sometimes an ill student doesn’t attend school, but feels better and more energetic by their lesson time. If that is the case, then we can do an online lesson. Please let me know when you keep your child home for an illness and we can touch base later in the day if you think your child might want an afternoon online lesson.