Closure to All Indoor Fitness Facilities - Caulfield School of Dance

There will be no classes from today, Sunday, November 8, and for at least one week. As you have probably heard, due to recent increases in COVID-19 cases in our health region, “all indoor fitness activities” are suspended until Fraser Health allows us to reopen.

We are keeping our families informed by email including providing links for meeting via Zoom.

From what we can tell right now, reopening will be in two weeks from now, or earlier*, which would mean resuming in-studio classes on Saturday, November 21, or earlier. From the Government of British Columbia:

Businesses, recreation centres or other organizations that organize or operate indoor group physical activities must suspend these activities. This includes:

Spin classes
Yoga
Group fitness
Dance classes
Any other group indoor activity that increases the respiratory rate

According to the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce, “New safety protocols for these businesses are forthcoming.”

This is very frustrating because we are above and beyond the requirements for Phase 2 (and BC is currently in Phase 3, with its less stringent requirements). And(!) other activities with equal or more risk are allowed right now including gymnastics and cheer. From a local Cheer gym:

(I don’t know what “Phase A” is. If you do, please contact us!)

There is a link to petition on our Facebook page that you may wish to sign and share.

I believe that private instruction is to be allowed, but we will not run any classes of any kind until we are certain we are cleared to do so. We have not received our official email from Fraser Health so have no further information now. I expect that by Monday, we will have heard directly from Fraser Health.

* We have a Covid safety plan in place that is ready for inspection at any time. It already far exceeds what is required by us as of the guidelines we received for Phase 2, though we are now in the less restrictive Phase 3. However, the forthcoming new requirements may require us to make further adaptations. It seems we will be asked to submit our plan, updated if necessary, for approval for re-opening. There is no indication of how long the approval process will take. Hopefully, we can submit on Monday, November 9 and be pre-approved to open on or before Saturday, November 21.

In the absence of more information, we cannot provide you with a plan right now for continuing classes. Options include adding class time after the planned end date for each course. Online instruction is also possible. A combination of both is also an option.

At this time, our annual Christmas fundraising activities will proceed with modifications to the plan for Performing only. (We won’t be ready to video all the Performing courses between November 24 and 28 now.)

Stay safe and we’ll see you soon.

Sincerely,
Cori Caulfield
Principal
Caulfield School of Dance

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