Addressing COVID-19

As our greater community is taking measures to address the coronavirus, we at Sauvie Island Center thought it was important to review how COVID-19 will affect our programming and the precautions we are taking against it. 

First and foremost, we want to emphasize that the health and equity of the students we serve, our staff, our partners and our community as a whole is our top priority.

In considering the health of our community, we will be following the protocols of our partner school districts (Portland Public Schools, Hillsboro School District, Beaverton School District, and David Douglas School District). This means that we will be suspending our classroom visit program as well as our in-person farm field trips for the spring season. We are in the process of developing digital field trips that we hope will provide an opportunity for the students we serve to learn about pollinators, plants, farms and gardens from home this spring. 

As we work closely with Portland State University Capstone students during the field trip season, we will be adhering by PSU’s COVID-19 protocols this spring, which involve switching over to remote learning for the remainder of this school year. We are excited to collaborate remotely with our PSU Capstone students, who will aide us in developing digital field trip curriculum. 

Finally, we want to emphasize the importance of collective effort to combat this virus, and remind our community that a “person’s ethnicity, language or association with a country or region is not a risk factor for this virus.” (Language borrowed from Multnomah County’s COVID-19 online resources) We emphasize the importance of keeping equity at the forefront as we all address this pandemic.

We are grateful to be part of such a proactive community that prioritizes health, and feel confident that we are taking every measure to ensure a safe and successful spring season.