Dear Bay School Community Members,

We are still open!

The safety of our visitors, artists, students, and staff is our top priority. We are closely monitoring the COVID-19 outbreak in the US, and in light of growing concerns, are taking a number of precautions.

Immediate actions include:

· Performing multiple daily disinfectant wipe downs for all railings, doorknobs, tables, chairs, and frequently touched surfaces. With the lack of commercial disinfecting products available in stores, we are augmenting other cleaning products with alcohol to ensure they will do the job.

· Providing hand sanitizer for classrooms, offices, gallery, and sales areas. Again, these are homemade from aloe vera and 70% alcohol, so they have the germ-killing power we need.

· We still want you to visit our art spaces, but please stay home if you or a family member have a fever or a cough. For your protection and the protection of all our visitors, when you visit, please refrain from handling items on display in the gallery. If you come for a class, bring and use as many as your own materials as possible, and if you use ours, please clean them before returning them to common use.

Classes and workshops:

· As of now, classes you have signed up for at the Bay School are operating as scheduled. If you don’t feel well enough or safe enough to attend, we will issue you a credit to be used toward a future class, or we will be happy to accept your tuition payment as a donation. If a teacher cancels, or attendance for a class drops below a sustainable level, we will do our best to reschedule the class at a later date, and a credit will be issued to transfer your payment to the new class. We ask that you use your class credits this calendar year.

· Children’s classes, family classes, outreach programs and after school programs will follow the Mathews school system’s actions. The governor has just announced that all Virginia schools are closed through March 27. We will postpone and reschedule all children’s and family classes during that time.

· The pottery studio is open for members on its published schedule.

· Registered students will be made aware of any changes by email and/or phone.

Gallery events:

· The Art Speaks Gallery will remain open our regular hours, Monday-Saturday, 10am-4pm.

· Due to the concerns posed by indoor gatherings of large groups of people, we are modifying, postponing, or cancelling the following events:

o The March 21 Foodie Artisan Market will be modified to lessen shared contacts among visitors. Vendors may or may not be present with their wares. The art activities will be prepared in kits for children to take home and make.

o The March 27 gallery reception for the Sculpture & Garden Art exhibition has been cancelled. We hope you will visit the gallery while the show is here, and definitely check out the show online starting March 27.

o The March 28 Wine in the Midst of Art event has been postponed. We will let you know when a new date has been selected.

o April events are under consideration and you will be updated when we know more. We hope you use this time to contemplate, create and take good care! We will be active on social media so you can keep up with all the Bay School activities. Our gallery exhibitions are viewable online. While you are browsing our website, take a moment to check out our outreach programs and exciting class catalog.

We are thinking of you and hope that we will see you soon!