Response to COVID-19
As the situation surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak continues to develop, we want to encourage our chapters to follow all advisories from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), your local health departments, and other advisory agencies. This includes limiting travel, particularly to affected areas, and limiting your interactions with others, especially those at high risk for severe disease. If members, mothers, or other individuals associated with a chapter have traveled to areas with substantial outbreaks, have symptoms, or are uncomfortable attending events for any reason, they should be excused from attending Delta Beta Sigma events at this time. We hope that chapters are able to continue meetings and events as scheduled but chapters should plan for disruptions and event cancellations over the next 2-3 months.
If any school district associated with a chapter cancels school, all Delta Beta Sigma events should be cancelled until classes resume, and members should be discouraged from meeting informally. Otherwise, we consider the exposure risk associated with DBS meetings and other events to be similar to that occurring during the school day, but attendance should not be mandatory for any DBS events at this time. Additionally, chapters should refrain from planning events at nursing homes, Ronald McDonald Houses, or with other high-risk people. Chapters are highly discouraged from planning social or recruitment events prior to May 1st. If your chapter has already planned such an event, you will need to work closely with your chapter advisor and monitor the current health advisories in your area to ensure proper precautions are taken. It is very possible these events will be cancelled or postponed. We will continue to evaluate these policies and consider the safety of such events after May 1st as the situation progresses.
At this time we are planning to hold Convention 2020 as scheduled. While the deadline for convention registration is still set at May 5th, we will continue to assess the situation and work with chapters as needed. Our convention attendance levels are such that we do not expect this to represent a substantial risk at the time of convention, but this is very dependent on the public health landscape in May and June and may change. Chapters should proceed with officer elections via the new procedure including asking about convention attendance, but we will work with individuals as the registration deadline approaches if they have concerns about attendance due to COVID-19. Similarly, chapters may plan to hold recruitment events in June, July, and August but should keep in mind that this is a developing situation, and it is possible that events or attendance is limited.
Our utmost concern is for the well-being of our members and other individuals associated with our organization. We strongly believe that membership in our organization and attendance of Delta Beta Sigma events enriches the lives of our members, but we must remain vigilant to ensure that these events maintain the health of our members.
-The National Board of Regents
