March 16 | COVID-19

Dear Mullen Community,

From the Lasallian Prayer for Peace: “We pray for peace in our lives; in our towns, in our schools, in our families and in our hearts. We pray for a peace that the world cannot give us. We pray for a peace that will make us whole and transform us into ambassadors of justice for Your sake.” We hope you find in this prayer solace, comfort and strength. 
Faith sustains us through all trials and will absolutely sustain us now.

We are grateful to you for your patience and understanding during this unprecedented time of responding to the COVID-19 virus. Our commitment to our families is to continue to communicate with you in as clear and timely a fashion as possible. Please check the new SPRING 2020 section on the front page of our website for the most up-to-date information concerning Mullen High School’s plans in response to coronavirus.

As we all know, this situation remains unpredictable and any and all plans we make and announce are, obviously, dependent upon the information and advice provided to us by federal and local agencies. We are complying and will continue to comply with recommendations from these entities.

Given the evolving nature of the situation and following prayer, discernment, internal conversation and consultation with leaders around us, we have determined that Mullen High School will remain closed through at least Friday, April 3, 2020.  At this time we intend for classes to resume Monday, April 6, 2020. However, again, we note that this determination may change at any given time.

During this extended break from in person learning, Mullen High School will institute a plan of Distance Learning beginning the middle of next week. 

As you know, our faculty and staff gathered on Thursday, 3.12 and Friday 3.13.2020. We prepared the buildings for the sanitizing process discussed in previous messages. We also discussed Mr. Howard’s expectations concerning Distance Learning. While these conversations will evolve as we are putting together a Distance Learning Task Force to develop and institute our plans, we wanted our faculty to begin considering what their instruction will look like going forward. 

Therefore, following our already scheduled Spring Break (Monday, 3.16 - Friday, 3.20.2020), we will virtually meet with our faculty and staff on Monday, 3.23.2020 to further explain our approach. They will have Tuesday, 3.24.2020 to continue their preparations to begin the Distance Learning phase of our year. The first day of Distance Learning will be Wednesday, 3.25.2020. We are beginning following Spring Break to allow our faculty and staff to keep their time with their families as intact as possible and to not have them have to plan and prepare throughout those days off.

Our faculty and staff are immensely talented and dedicated individuals, devoted to working with your children. While we are excited about the possibilities this Distance Learning opportunity affords us, our collective training has almost exclusively been focused on in person classroom instruction. Mullen High School is not an online school. As confident as we are in our ability to adapt our approach to serve all students, we know that there will be challenges. We will get better as we go and will continue to improve as long as we are in this current situation. Mullen High School students will be in class this spring, virtual though they may be. Far more information will be forthcoming.

One of our goals over the coming weeks will be providing support to our students and families along with as much consistency as we can. We want everyone to remember that we are Mullen. We are Lasallian and Catholic and that this part of our identity is as critical as it has ever been. We anticipate daily prayers and announcements being offered on our website both in writing and virtually. We hope to provide video updates as well as written updates about the school and happenings in our community. We will remind ourselves that there are many ways to be in community with one another and we will continue to discover more… The world may be in a state of flux at the moment, but we will remain constant in our Lasallian mission. 

We would like to thank the community for the positive feedback and support that we have received over the past few days. We are humbled and graced by it. 

Please continue your prayers for the health care providers, the first responders, those working in grocery stores and all who are truly heroic in what they are doing in the midst of these challenging days. Their work and their efforts are models of service to us all.

We also ask that the Mullen community continues to pray for one another over the course of the next days and weeks. One of the greatest strengths of Mullen High School is our community and that community is present and active even when we are not physically together. And, even when we are not physically together, we are always in the Holy Presence of God.

St. John Baptist de La Salle, pray for us!


Raul Cardenas, Jr., Ph.D. 
President and Chief Executive Officer
Jeffrey M. Howard, MA
 Principal and Chief Academic Officer
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