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TAS, TES to reopen one day late amid anti-SARS efforts

The Taipei American School (TAS) and the Taipei European School (TES) yesterday announced that students, parents, faculty and staff who traveled to areas hard-hit by the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) will have to stay away from the two schools until they are cleared of having the illness.

According to a joint statement issued by the schools yesterday, TAS superintendent Mark Ulfers and TES chief executive officer John Nixon agreed to follow a common strategy of action and communication since the two schools are in a similar situation because classes were due to resume on Monday following their spring holidays.

"We recognize that there is not a major outbreak in Taiwan. How-ever, our issue is that so many people in our TAS and TES communities have been traveling off-island during the recent spring break. Our response must be different than that of local schools because people in our communities may have traveled through the identified countries most impacted by SARS," the statement said. "Our goal is to prevent the SARS virus from infecting anyone on the TAS and TES campuses."

According to the statement, both TAS and TES will be closed to students on Monday and will reopen on Tuesday only for students, parents, faculty and staff who have not traveled in Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and China and only for students, parents, faculty and staff who are not displaying any symptoms of the SARS virus.

The two schools will also follow directives from the Bureau of Education regarding the SARS, the statement said.
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