|
|
|
The views expressed on this page are
solely
those of the author and do not
necessarily represent the views of County
News Online
|
|
Permission granted by City School District of New Rochelle
Education Dive
7 students in a class? Not practical, school operations officials say
District officials are exploring products that can keep buildings
cleaner, but they’re skeptical of some of the plans for enforcing
social distancing in schools.
Linda Jacobson
May 6, 2020
Thermal cameras that take students’ and staff members’ temperatures as
they enter a school, flooring with one-way directions and
“self-cleaning” windows that use UV light to clean the air inside a
room are among the products school operations officials are considering
as they begin preparing for schools to re-open — whenever that is.
Some operations and plant managers recognize the coronavirus has changed the way they maintain buildings.
“As far as we’re concerned, we’re never going to be able to do things
the way we used to,” said Keith Watkins, director of facilities for the
City School District of New Rochelle — once a hot spot for the virus.
Several months ago, Watkins — also president of the National School
Plant Management Association — said he happened to be looking at
cleaning products that leave an antimicrobial coating on surfaces and
promise to kill and prevent bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms
from returning for up to 90 days.
Such precautions, he said, will be needed because it’s not practical to
clean and disinfect classrooms and surfaces every time a student
sneezes or coughs.
In the 116,000-student Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District in
Houston, Texas, Chief Financial Officer Karen Smith has been
calculating the potential costs of cleaning classrooms after every
period. — roughly $21,000 per day. Other non-instructional costs piling
up include plexiglass barriers for school nutrition staff,
receptionists and other offices, such as human resources, that see a
lot of traffic.
Watkins said he’s also been researching high-efficiency filters for
HVAC systems that can trap and keep particles, such as bacteria and
viruses, from being released into the air. These are ways, he said, of
“getting ahead of [infection] instead of chasing it.”
But some scenarios he’s heard don’t sound realistic, he said.
“To think you’re going to keep students six feet apart in a classroom
is ridiculous,” he said, adding such a requirement would reduce a
typical classroom to seven students. “Who is going to supervise that?
In New Jersey, Keith Gourlay, executive director of the state’s School
Buildings and Grounds Association, said one idea being recommended is
to add trailers to school campuses to increase the number of classroom
spaces. “Where do they think these trailers are going to come from?” he
asked.
Smith added using portable classrooms to spread out students would only
add to personnel costs at a time when budget cuts are expected.
While some countries are already mandating older students wear masks to
school, Gourlay is also skeptical about such rules in the U.S. “To
think we’re going to make kids wear masks is a joke,” he said.
|
|
|
|
