The pandemic has forced many readjustments. Children’s programming is, I feel, a big challenge. Given that there’s still no vaccine in testing for children 12 and under, we may be looking at COVID restrictions in children’s programming for another academic year. Offering only online programming for another academic year does not feel like a good solution to me.
Our congregation is fortunate in having lots of good outdoor space. The problem with our outdoor space is that anyone can access it, and current regulations for children’s programming in our county require limiting access to children’s programming space so that only the children and staff may enter. So the congregation purchased that ugly orange emergency fencing and a bunch of steel fence posts, and last week I and one of the members of the Board of Trustees (who is teaching in one of our in-person classes, and who is also the teen member of the Board) installed a fence around our primary children’s program area.
It’s not very attractive, but it seems to do the job of keeping unauthorized persons out of the program area. Once you’re inside the children’s program area, it’s less visible. In fact, the program area looks reasonably attractive.
We have some more improvements in the works, and soon should have another COVID-safe in-person children’s programming area ready. We’re going to max out at two in-person children’s programming areas, however, because at this point each program area has to have its own bathroom. With the bathroom limitation and the maximum allowed group size fo social distancing, our capacity for in-person children’s programs has dropped from 80 children pre-pandemic, to 16 under current COVID regulations.