Covid-19 update: Level 2 and what it means for BTI

Kia ora
 
Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced that New Zealand will move to Level 2 on Thursday. Here’s what this means for you.
 
Teaching
 
We recognise how much value we put on relationship building. One of the reasons we have onsite teaching and face-to-face intensives is to build relationships with you all, invest in your lives and your personal, professional and spiritual growth. Being gracious, secure and teachable is best expressed, best taught, best learned when we all come together: that’s a foundational premise of BTI from our earliest days.
 
So we carry a deep disappointment, a real grief, as you do, that we have not been able to do that in this season. We miss seeing your faces in person, hearing your voices in the same room as we are, walking beside you (even literally) on your journeys with us.
 
We hold this value while also prioritising your health and safety and exercising an abundance of caution at this time of Covid-19. For that reason, today we have decided the following:
 

• As previously signalled, we will keep teaching online for the rest of semester 1.
  
• We intend to hold the rest of our intensives online only. We have had great success with online intensives this year, though realise this has only ever been a Plan B. We also acknowledge the difficulty and perhaps reluctance many of you may have travelling to upcoming intensives and the expense of doing so. We feel that the best way to support you at this time is to reduce any stress you might have about attending onsite intensives. Your educators will be in touch with more details in due course. 
• We will make a decision in two weeks (26 May) on whether we will teach online only for semester 2 and communicate that to you at that time.

 
Access to BTI
 
All students are welcome to come back to BTI from Monday 18th if you want to.
 
Specifically:
 

• You will need to sign in and out at reception. This is critical for contact tracing and there are no exceptions.
  
• Students wanting to access the library will need to book with David Osman 24 hours in advance and sign in via reception in Block 1 first. 
• Academic support consultations will remain online for the rest of the semester via the booking system.
  
• Library books will be sent to distance students from this Thursday. 
• We will be cordoning off a the student hub due to flooding that occurred just before lockdown and repair work that will need to follow. Students will be given access to the toilets in the library block.
  
• BTI can only be accessed between the hours of 8am-5pm, Monday-Friday. There will be no after-hours access in the evenings or the weekends. At those times the BTI buildings will be both closed and alarmed. This is to ensure that we can have clear contact tracing protocols in place. 
• We will be opening Blocks 1, 2, 6, the library and academic support workroom.
  
• Blocks 3 and 4 will remain closed. 
• We have ordered more hand sanitiser and more antibacterial wipes. However, we will trust each one of you to clean and sanitise after yourselves, especially on high-touch surfaces (like door handles) as you come and go.  

 
We realise there are other issues that may arise depending on how long Level 2 lasts, how New Zealand’s Covid-19 infection rate changes, government advice, and what feedback we get from you. BTI’s leadership team will continue to meet daily and we will seek to respond, as best we can, to these queries as they arise. If you have any questions or concerns, please ask your course coordinator in the first instance.
 
We also celebrate God’s goodness to us: in in each other, in the mission of this place, and in a firm belief that even at this very difficult time, the goodness of God will shine brightly, sustain us daily, and guide us gently.
 
Shalom
Andrew