COVID-19 Response Information

Update – March 18, 2022

The British Columbia Centre of Disease Control has recently removed its Mask Mandate that will affect many BC citizens in various types of businesses. However, in the past couple of weeks the UK and several countries in Europe, including Germany, France, and Switzerland, are experiencing a new wave, the Omicron BA.2 which is reported to be 30% more transmissible than the original Omicron variant. At least 12 countries, geographically extending
from Finland to Greece are experiencing new increases in cases, some quite marked, such as Austria exceeding its pandemic peak, and Finland with an 85% increase in cases from the prior week alone. As well many of these countries are also showing a rise in hospital admissions.
This is the sixth warning from the UK and Europe to the United States and Canada.
In many States, indications support the idea that the new wave has already started.
In our neighboring Province Alberta, reports show that 25% of the new cases are BA.2.
In our Province, new cases are bouncing around highs and lows, with reports from 500+ cases to 200+ cases depending on the day, and BCCDC has reported the BA.2 variant has been found in BC as far back as December 2021.  The history of the Omicron virus has shown its ability to mutate to more transmissible variants which may cause more severe symptoms over time.

Therefore, the Covid-19 Committee is recommending and implementing the continuation of all Stage 4 of the Covid-19 Safety Plan protocols and procedures which includes the use of masks until April 8th when BCCDC has indicated further adjustments may be made to restrictions.

Covid-19 Committee
Jim Matson

Update – January 7, 2022

Update – January 2, 2022

Update – September 9, 2021

Considering the serious risk imposed by the current Covid-19 virus variant the BCCDC via the Provincial Health Officer has announced vaccination requirements in order for people to participate in certain types of activities. At DCMS the board is continuing with our Stage 4 Covid-19 Safety Plan procedures and protocols, and at this point are announcing that vaccinations will be required for faculty and students aged 12 years and over for all in-person lessons.

We understand that this may inconvenience some who wish to utilize the school for in-person lessons, however, our first priority is the health and safety of all participants going forward into the fall.

As of September 13, 2021, at least the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine will be required for in-person lessons, and the second dose by October 24, 2021.

We expect that these requirements, as well as Stage 4 of our Covid-19 Safety Plan, will remain in place until January 31, 2022.

We are monitoring the Covid-19 situation in the Province closely and should change be required prior to January 31, 2022, we will make those announcements in a timely fashion.

Please contact our administrator for methods available to provide vaccination information to her office.

Jim Matson, DCMS Board of Directors.

Update – September 1, 2021

The School continues to be in Stage 4 of our reopening plan.  Our upstairs studios will reopen to students starting September 7th for the fall term.  We will be continuing with Contact Tracing, Daily Screening forms, and temperature checks until further notice.  Due to the safety concerns of the new Delta variant, several of our teachers have chosen to continue to offer online lessons only at this time. 

Update – July 6, 2021

The School is now in Stage 4 of our reopening plan. As the Province of BC is no longer in a state of emergency as of July 1st the board now feels that it is safe to move the school to Stage 4 of our reopening plan.  We have now some in-person private teaching in 3 studios at the school with the Kinsroom being used for private teaching and small groups of up to 6 persons as stated in our COVID-19 response plan.  We expect at this time that these protocols will be in place until September 7th.  All current screening, cleaning protocols, mask requirements, and controlled entry and exit protocols will remain in place. 

Update – February 13, 2021

The Delta Community Music School plays a distinctive and vital role in our community and while we have taken the Covid-19 virus threat very seriously, from the beginning of the virus outbreak policies and protocols were created which have allowed the school to continue safely with in-person lessons on a restricted basis. Currently, only 25% of our instructors are utilizing studio school space for continuing lessons, the rest are completed online and will remain so for the time being.

Our community is faced with a new potential threat of Covid-19 variants which are much more contagious than the original Covid-19 virus itself as experience in other jurisdictions has demonstrated. Although the information is still being developed regarding the variants that are known, at this time we do not anticipate the need for any changes in our protocols or procedures. If the variants become the dominant viruses in circulation in our community, then we may consider further changes when and if prescribed by the BC Centre of Disease Control.

Viruses are transmitted via respiratory droplets or aerosols (smaller droplets) or fomite transmission (if you touch a surface where the virus has been deposited and you then touch your face, eyes, nose or mouth) the virus can enter your upper respiratory tract rather than breathing it in. This makes hand hygiene very important. As part of our protocols, we advocate washing/sanitizing hands as often as possible when in the school building.

Vaccines are being distributed to sectors of the population in our Province and while information is still not completely developed on the effectiveness of the available vaccines on all the variants, some of the vaccines have been shown to work well in avoiding symptoms or minimizing symptoms & length of illness.

The basic protocols remain the same:

Face masks, social distancing, use of soap or sanitizer to wash hands as often as possible.

Update – January 8, 2021

The BC CDC as of January 7th has extended the restrictions on social gatherings until February 5th. Also, new guidelines have been issued here.  Essentially structured extracurricular activities and programs for people 21 years of age and younger can continue to operate with a COVID-19 Safety Plan in place and must be supervised by an adult. These include music and art programs.

Update – December 6,  2020

There is now an updated plan concerning recording sessions for our virtual recitals that will be taking place later in December. Please check the COVID-19 response plan (link on the left). Also, make sure all consent forms are filled out and signed before you enter the building. (also pdf links on the left). There is no change to our guidelines for private lessons in-person at DCMS at this time. 

Update – November 9,  2020

There are new restrictions in place for the next two weeks from BCCDC. While the new guidelines do not directly affect our activities as we are already holding ourselves to a higher standard for our in-person one-on-one lesson, in an abundance of caution some of our in-person teachers are teaching online only for the next two weeks. If this is the case for your lessons,  your teacher will contact you directly to inform you. 

Update – October 14,  2020

We are now in Stage 2 and 3 of our reopening plan.  Some Stage 3 activities are happening in the Kinsroom (private jazz study lessons with Brad Muirhead. Our safety plan has recently been updated with new protocols about the use of fans and maintaining open windows and doors for airflow ventilation.  Studio B and the Kinsroom now have window fans and they must now be in use for all lessons held in those spaces. At the moment there are no changes to lessons happening in the rest of the building, smaller spaces are still at Stage 2.  The daily questionnaire will now available outside on the front porch, and should be filled in before entering the building. 

Update – September 22, 2020

We are currently in Stage 2 of our reopening process. Five out of twenty of our teachers are conducting some in-person lessons at the moment. We will consider our next options, including the restart of the Jazz Ensemble after October 1st as a private lesson instruction class, which means we will have a limited introduction of Stage 3 to accommodate Jazz classes in early October.   Most of our teaching at the school is online only at the moment.  Our Board of directors COVID committee continues to meet virtually once per week to discuss our current situation.  

Update – September 12, 2020

We are currently in Stage 1 of our reopening process. Five out of twenty of our teachers are conducting some in-person lessons at the moment. We will consider our next options, including the restart of the Jazz Ensemble after October 1st.  Most of our teaching at the school is online only at the moment.  Our Board of directors COVID committee continues to meet virtually once per week to discuss our current situation. 

Update – July 30, 2020

Hello to our students and families of DCMS.
The first drafts of our reopening plan for the music school and our COVID-19 response plan have now been approved by the City of Delta. There are now new protocols and procedures in place for anyone entering into the building for any reason. I am in the process of creating a new website for the school which will be published later in August, so for now I will list all of the documents here.

Anyone teaching or taking lessons at the school will have to sign the informed consent form. This will be emailed out to all building users (including faculty, volunteers, and staff) and it will become part of the terms and conditions that you will agree to before your lessons resume in our fall term in September.

When we do open in September the school will remain closed to the public. All waiting areas in the school are now permanently closed. Students will be escorted in and out of the school by their teacher at the beginning and end of their lesson time. There will be strict protocols in place for social distancing, usage of masks, sanitization, and cleaning before and after every lesson.

Daily, upon entry to the school, everyone who enters must fill out this form and the student’s temperature will be taken.

Our COVID-19 response plan – All students, parents, faculty, staff, and volunteers must follow these guidelines. These are not optional.

These are living documents and will be updated as the summer progresses.

Regards, Stephen
Music Director, DCMS

UPDATE: July 2, 2020

Hello to our students and families of DCMS.
We hope you have enjoyed Canada Day and you are all safe and well. The staff and Board of Directors are currently working on a reopening plan for the school. We hope to have the first draft of our COVID-19 safety plans and protocols in place at the school starting by mid to late July. As we have now entered into our Province’s Stage 3 of reopening we are working to bring back in-person lessons in a graduated format starting this fall.

To date, all of our in-person summer programs have been canceled, including the South Delta Jazz Festival, Thrive City String Boot Camps, (as the province is not allowing overnight camps at this time), and the Drum Workshop (as our borders are closed). Private lessons continue in an online-only format for the time being. We will have one or two private lessons happening in person to test protocols for fall during this summer. Private lessons will return in a graduated fashion beginning with cello, and piano. Voice lessons and any group in-person activities with voice are at the moment considered to be unsafe and we will not have in-person voice lessons taking place take until the final stages of returning to in-person lessons. We are developing our plans in conjunction with guidelines from the City of Delta, Worksafe BC, the Province of BC, and consultation with the BC Community Music School Association and the Western Conference of Conservatory Schools in Canada. Our plan will be published on our site in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: May 8, 2020

Hi, all students and families of Delta Community Music School.
We hope you are all staying safe and healthy during this time. We have made the decision not to resume in-person lessons at the Delta Community Music School for the remainder of the 2019-2020 session. At this time we will be continuing with online classes only.

For those students who did not want to do online lessons or had instructors that did not continue with online lessons you will receive an email with the credit amount of your unused tuition and an option to receive a refund or apply the credit to the tuition for our 2020-2021 session.

We will take this time to come up with the solutions for the new 2020-2021 session which starts September 8^th, 2020. We will do everything we can to ensure the student’s health and safety as we all come back together.

If you have any questions you can call or email to the office during regular office hours and we will be glad to help you.

UPDATE March 26, 2020

Hello Delta Community Music School Parents, Guardians, and Students,

First and most importantly, we hope you are all healthy and staying safe.
At this time we have made the decision to close the school indefinitely. That means there will be no public access to the school at this time. We will be working in the next couple of weeks to enable the continuation of your lessons virtually. Your instructor will be reaching out to you about the possibility of continuing your lessons online as soon as they are set up.

As we have no solid information on how long the school will be closed or if students will be continuing their learning online we will hold off on offering refunds until we have more information. We will be waving the 15-day notice of termination policy that we currently have in place effective immediately.

If you pay your fees monthly we will not be depositing the April 1st cheques until we know if lessons will be continuing. Once we have confirmation from the instructor that you are continuing online we will deposit those cheques.
We will also be updating our website and sending out emails as more information becomes available to us.

Thank you for your patience as we work through the challenges facing us all.

UPDATE March 21, 2020

A lot has changed in the past few days with the virus and how our community is responding. At this time Delta Community Music School has suspended all group classes and we asking our teachers to move all private lessons to an online format for the time being as we deem it not to be safe to have a continuous stream of clients, students and teachers coming into our school. Our school office will open Monday March 30 and we will have regular office hours moving forward but students will not be coming to the school for lessons or classes until further notice.

Please understand public safety is our number one priority, and all of the non-profit schools have reached this same decision and have closed for the time being. There are some private teachers out there still teaching in their homes, etc. They are putting themselves and their students at risk by doing so.

UPDATE: March 12, 2020

To our members,

With growing global concerns around COVID-19 (“coronavirus”), We wanted to provide you with an update on our response to date and our commitment to you moving forward. The health, safety, and well-being of our staff and students is our top priority and we are following the lead of Canadian public health authorities at this important time.

First and foremost, we are taking all appropriate measures to ensure our school and the classrooms are safe and that we have existing plans in place to ensure they stay that way. While the Public Health Agency of Canada has assessed the current public health risk associated with coronavirus as low, we continue to monitor for developments very closely

We have implemented additional measures to ensure your safety as well as the safety of our staff, including:

• enhanced cleaning protocols including a deep cleaning of the school over the spring break
• Increasing communications and reminders on important health and safety measures

To protect yourself and others, we ask that you use preventive measures outlined below.

 For individuals, good respiratory etiquette and hand hygiene behaviours include:

• Washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds
• Using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer (if soap and water are not available)
• Not sharing food or utensils with others
• Using proper coughing or sneezing etiquette (cough/sneeze into elbow or tissue, not hand)
• Staying home when sick

Again, we continue to monitor this situation closely and will provide ongoing updates as needed. We also encourage our members to stay up-to-date through Canada’s Public Health website.

The Board of Directors, Delta Community Music School