UPDATE: COVID-19

Dear MDU Family,

Today is a great day! Today, our studio will have a modified opening, an event that our staff and students have been looking forward to for 12 days during our recent voluntary closure to support community health.

We are pleased to share that our Safer Studio™ plans have earned the support of the La Crosse County Health Department which allows us to offer service continuity going forward. What does that mean? It means that means the plans and precautions we have put into place support our ability to hold in-person classes with modifications - even during “red”.

The response to our planning and communication has been overwhelmingly positive and we are pleased to be able to offer you two ways to dance this week:

1. You can join us for in-person classes, which will be limited to 9 students per class; or
2. If you are uncomfortable attending in-person classes, you are welcome to learn-at-home with our new live-streamed classes via Zoom. Please check your email for at-home participation zoom links to your classes.

The County has expressed their appreciation for our continued efforts to support community health by offering a variety of ways for students to continue to dance safely. After all, health is not just about avoiding sickness. It’s also about building strong bodies, minds, and hearts - something that happens in each and every class at MDU!

That said, you are probably aware that the number of positive COVID-19 cases in the County has increased significantly in the past few weeks. It probably also goes without saying that we are a school, and schools are going to experience reports of COVID-19 exposure as they welcome back their staff and students. The County has assured me that single reports of exposure risk will not require a studio closure. If the studio receives a report of exposure risk, the reporter will be asked to share with the County, any affected classes will be notified, and exposure-risk level cleaning will be enacted. The County encourages those with exposure risk to self-quarantine for 14 days from the date of potential exposure. MDU has the ability to monitor staff self-quarantine but does not have the capacity to monitor student self-quarantine. As such, parents will be asked to use their own discretion as to their comfortability returning to class or if they would rather participate from home. There is absolutely no penalty for absence and classes may be made up in-person (space permitting) or online (anytime). If the studio receives a cluster report of exposure risk, we will work directly with the County on the next steps.

Thank you MDU Family, for working together to minimize risk, keep our staff and students safe, and keep our studio operational. We continue to follow the highest standards of care and ask you to do the same. For a full list of our re-opening procedures please see attached document.

Thank you again for your support! We appreciate our MDU family every day and we can’t wait to see you this week!

Sincerely,

Misty Lown