Guidance for Employees Returning to the Law School During COVID-19

March 01, 2021

Dear Colleagues:

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the pandemic shutdown, we recognize the ongoing struggles that many of us are facing on child care. The spring break period coming up in many school districts is likely to be even more challenging than usual.  The University has a limited pool of funding to help eligible employees pay for emergency child care during the upcoming spring break period. If you have children age 13 or under, please read the email below to determine whether or not this program may be of assistance to you.

Program Details:

Bright Horizons Crisis Care can provide a reimbursement of $100 per day, up to a maximum of 10 days, for out-of-pocket costs you incur when you experience a breakdown in your regular child care and need to secure in-home care (or additional care at a school or childcare center) from within your own personal network.  If the care for which you paid is provided by an individual outside your household—a family member, a friend, a neighbor, or a familiar babysitter, you may be eligible for reimbursement. Reimbursement is not available for care provided by you or a member of your own household, including a spouse/partner.

The Crisis Care reimbursement program will be available March 15 – April 16, 2021. You may request reimbursement for any 10 days within this period of time. This program is only for expenses that are due to increased care needed as a result of COVID-related school or child care center closings or unanticipated hybrid/remote schooling. Use of Crisis Care reimbursement counts toward your 200 hours of Back-Up Care for the year and must be taken in a minimum of 4-hour increments.

Eligibility:

• Full-time Officers, Non-Union Support Staff, Union 2110 Staff.
• Post-Docs - including Post-Doc Research Fellows, Research Scholars, and Research Scientists, regardless of eligibility for other University benefits.
• Doctoral student, enrolled either full-time or part-time.
• Teaching Fellows not in a Ph.D. program.
• Have one or more dependents age 13 or under; this is a single benefit, regardless of the number of dependents in the household.
• The benefit is per household; there is no doubling where two Columbia employees share responsibility for the care of one or more dependents in a single household.
• A reimbursement request may not be made for care provided when you did not work.

Process:

• If you have already registered with Bright Horizons, starting on March 15^th you will see the option to request reimbursement on your personal log-in screen and should follow the directions at that time.
• If you are not registered with Bright Horizons, follow the instructions on the Work/Life Website to register so that you can then access Crisis Care starting March 15th.
• You may only submit a reimbursement request for up to 10 days total during this five-week period, not for any retroactive or prospective care needs.
• Your reimbursement request must be submitted no later than the last day of the program, April 16, 2021. No reimbursements can be processed after this date.

You do not need to submit receipts to Bright Horizons, but please save them. Please make note of the date(s) and time used, and have the caregiver whom you paid sign the document. Columbia does not require any personally-identifying information for the caregiver, other than their name and signature.

Participation in the reimbursement program is subject to audit at any time to confirm guidelines were followed.

Please note that the regular Back-Up Care program is also available during this time period if you prefer to use in-network caregivers or child care centers. Those uses will remain subject to regular co-pays and are not reimbursable through Crisis Care.

If you have any questions, please reach out to the Office of Work/Life at [email protected].

Sincerely,

Gerry Rosberg, Senior Executive Vice President 

Anil Rustgi, Interim Executive Vice President and Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine

January 04, 2021

Dear Columbia Faculty, Staff, and Students: 

Thank you for your support of all the required safety protocols that have kept our campuses safe in 2020. With the number of COVID-19 cases in New York increasing, this is a reminder to all current faculty, staff, and students who have been on campus, as well as those newly arriving, regarding 2021 requirements. 

• If you are a current faculty or staff member who accesses campus the only new requirement you have is to complete a SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic gateway test between January 4-25; you may schedule your appointment on the Columbia Health Online Patient Portal. You are also strongly recommended, but not required, to have weekly tests thereafter. If you do not have weekly testing, you are also required to comply with random sampling tests when you are notified. 
• If you are a current student who will access campus, you must complete the gateway test, and if you are an undergraduate living in University housing you must complete twice a week testing thereafter. Other students, i.e. undergraduates living off campus or graduate students, you may elect to have weekly tests thereafter. 
• If you have had a positive test SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic test within 90 days before January 25 and have either provided proof of the positive test (uploaded to the Columbia Health Online Patient Portal) or tested positive through the Columbia Health system, you should not have a gateway test until 90 days has passed since your initial positive test. A compliance file based on past positive tests will populate the ReOpen CU app during the gateway period for you, ensuring you are compliant with the gateway requirement. 
• Only tests conducted through Columbia Health will meet the University requirement. Please schedule in advance as soon as possible as the appointment slots are already filling up. We have added sufficient appointment slots during the gateway testing period so as to enable all to get tested. If a given location, date, and time is preferred please check the portal periodically for cancellations. As a reminder testing at Morningside and CUIMC campuses is offered Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. - 7 p.m. excluding the January 18 holiday. 
• If you are a new faculty, staff member or student, or are accessing campus for the first time, you must download the ReopenCU app which must be completed every day prior to accessing campus facilities.  You must sign the Columbia Compact and take the University required training for students or faculty/staff. Links to those two requirements are also found on the Reopen CU app. You are also required to obtain a gateway testing and related testing requirements, as mentioned above. 
• If you have traveled outside New York State (NYS) over the break, you must comply with the NYS requirements regarding quarantine and SARS-CoV-2 testing requirements which are linked online. 
• With limited exceptions, there are no in-person classes for the first two weeks of the Spring term. Anyone teaching or attending in-person classes must have completed their gateway test (with a negative test result) before entering a classroom. 

Your compliance with all of these requirements will not only keep our campuses safe, but will allow us to continue to engage in the University mission with regards to teaching, research, and service. Further details on the testing program can be found online.  

Finally, we are pleased to let you know that COVID-19 vaccine deployment is underway on the CUIMC campus for those with clinical roles, and we expect to be able to offer vaccination to all Columbia faculty, staff, and students in the coming months.  

Sincerely, 

Donna Lynne, DrPH,  Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Columbia University Irving Medical Center 

Melanie Bernitz, MD, MPH, Associate Vice President and Medical Director, Columbia Health and Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine (in the Center for Family and Community Medicine)