Dear students of KSA,
The outbreak of COVID-19 in South Korea had looked under control until they found one patient who roamed in the center of the city of Daegu and infected several hundred. Currently, South Korea has declared its highest level of alert on the outbreak, which enforced restriction on many public bodies and schools.
The Netherlands is currently declared to be a clean country, and RIVM is not making any official statement nor action items for the people, but the recent report of secondary infections in the north of Italy is putting Europe in a similar danger. Given that Amsterdam is one of the most traveler-populated cities and an important gateway to Europe from all over the world, it won’t be a surprise of mine even if we hear any confirmed cases tomorrow.
By internal investigation in our school, it is reported that not a small number of students traveled in and out of Europe during the spring break. Also, there were many business travelers, visiting families and friends during recent weeks. We assess that the risk of an outbreak is still very minimal, but the school has come to the conclusion that we should take the most conservative measures for the sake of our students’ safety and protection against any unfortunate incident.
Thus, the Korean School of Amsterdam decided the following.
*- Postponing of school opening to 7th March (from 29th Feb.)* We will postpone the school opening one week. Opening on 7th March is still a preliminary plan which will be re-evaluated early next week. Please keep an eye on the letter from the school, and feel free to contact your respective reacher for further updates.
*- Cancellation of the graduation ceremony* It is a very big pity of mine to declare this, but we will cancel this year’s graduation ceremony and, as a result, the performance shows as well. I know it is a long-been-waited event which happens only once a year, but we decided to cancel it because it is a big congregation of many people in a relatively confined venue and any single unfortunate case among those many people can lead to great danger to public health, which may become the headline of international news. So, we decided to cancel this year’s graduation ceremony. The awards will be done at a minimal scale after we open the school in each’s classroom.
I believe these decisions come as a big surprise for you, but I hope they do not come as a disappointment. We care about our student’s safety more than anything else, and it is a very painful decision of mine.
I do hope you to understand these decisions are inevitable and it was the best decision out of given circumstances, I believe.
Should you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me directly, or you may ask your teacher any time. Thank you.
Best regards,
Jungsoo Park School Principal