Community Day School Love the learning, Live the Values 

KadimaCDS

The Community Day School Health and Safety Plan has been created with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with additional information provided by the Allegheny County Health Department and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

It was developed by a team of CDS staff and medical advisors charged with researching the best available science and information to help protect our students, staff, and families against COVID-19 infection. The goal is to balance providing an enriching environment for children to learn and grow and for teachers to be empowered to succeed while upholding our commitment to Pikuach Nefesh (“safeguarding life”), a bedrock principle of Jewish law. 

The following is the most recent draft of the Health and Safety Plan based on the information available (updated February 2023); the plan is also posted on the CDS website at comday.org/kadimah. In modern Hebrew, Kadimah or קדימה (pronounced Kah-dee-mah) means “forward” or “Let’s go!”

The current plan prioritizes the most effective layered prevention strategies that were implemented successfully in the past three school years at CDS to maintain full in-person instruction with minimal interruption. However, it recognizes that, with current high levels of vaccination and population immunity from infection, the risk of medically significant disease, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19 is greatly reduced for most people. As such, any physical distancing and cohorting requirements have been eliminated, along with routine asymptomatic (pooled) testing and any COVID-related educational program restrictions. Many other COVID-19 policies and procedures have been streamlined, and the plan allows for opportunities for individual choice wherever feasible.

Please keep in mind that the COVID-19 pandemic still remains unpredictable; the circumstances on which this plan is based could change quickly and force us to reevaluate our approach with little notice.

Our best approach to minimizing the impact of COVID-19 is to embrace a shared sense of responsibility for one another’s well-being. While we cannot eliminate the risks altogether, our school community can continue to work collectively to mitigate them while sustaining educational excellence at CDS as safely as possible.

CDS Health and Safety Plan - Updated February 2023

Thank You, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh!

Community Day School thanks the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh for strategic leadership and financial support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Federation support has been vital to our ability to continue educating students safely, in a way that met the needs of teachers and individual families.

Each year the Federation provides unrestricted operating support to CDS. Since the beginning of the pandemic, in addition to operating support, the Federation allocated $478,733 to CDS to address unexpected pandemic-related expenses.

  • Federation funding purchased iPads and Chromebooks for our K–5 students ($20,000).
  • Federation support allowed for two days of summer planning and professional development to help teachers prepare for our campus reopening and a new blended online/in-person learning environment ($22,933).
  • Federation dollars also provided the staffing needed to offer simultaneous in-person and remote education including: IT support, a part-time school nurse, and classroom monitors ($160,800).
  • In addition, the Federation provided personal protective equipment and supplies to keep students and staff as safe as possible.

With Federation support, CDS and Pittsburgh’s Jewish community have faced COVID “stronger together.”