The Blytheville School District recently released its reentry plan, which is also known as the Ready for Learning plan.
Director of Curriculum Sally Cooke called it an “active, breathing” document.
“This plan is something required by the state but it is also an active, breathing document that we are making sure is ready for back to school,” Cooke told the Blytheville School Board on Monday. “Our district leadership team is part of this, our principals and staff have all been involved and have heard it. We take feedback and go back and revise it to make sure that we are offering the best plan for back to school that we can.”
She added,“You have to be able to show that you are using blended learning, a guaranteed and viable curriculum, and a student-focused approach. Those are the indicators that are required to make this work.”
Blytheville’s first day of school will be Aug. 24 for those who choose in-person learning and those who opt for the virtual academy.
“As we start we plan for our students that are attending face to face, we realize that we will never go back to the same kind of learning environment that we’ve had in the past, but we want our face to face traditional to look as much like that as possible while using all of the safety precautions we can,” Cooke said. “Our virtual academy students will start on that same day both of those groups will be using the learning management system called Lincoln Learning on a platform called Buzz.”
In his presentation to the board, director of facilities Brandon Harper discussed some of the building sanitation and PPE requirements for staff and students on campus.
“We reached out to our cleaning service contractor to look at what could be done in addition to daily cleaning routines,” he said. “We identified several things that we felt needed to be done on a daily basis, which included disinfecting high touch points like light switches and door knobs, points of entry and hallways with a disinfectant that will actually kill the COVID-19 virus. We’ve also purchased foggers for each campus to be used by our cleaning services at the end of the day. There is a chemical very similar to Lysol that is effective at killing coronavirus on both surfaces and in the air so that will be a part of their daily routine for cleaning and disinfecting.”
Harper continued, “We’ve purchased a large quantity of cloth triple-ply cotton style reusable masks that we want to distribute to faculty, staff and our students. In addition to that we’ve purchased a large quantity of disposable surgical style masks for those that might forget their cloth masks or something happens to it, we’ll have a replacement that we can issue very quickly.”
The district has ordered N95 masks, which are rated to filter the coronavirus.
“We’ve also purchased clear face shields that are not to replace the face masks, in addition to gloves and disposable protective gowns,” Harper said. “The guidance we received from the department of health has recommended that those items be distributed to our nurses and any staff performing health screenings.”
Harper added that a large quantity of hand sanitizer dispensers have been purchased and will be mounted throughout the campuses.
He then explained how transportation sanitation would be performed.
“In regard to transportation, we have purchased foggers for the service centers for them to be used before students can ever enter the busses and basically after each use,” Harper said. “We are looking at all options regarding spacing desks and tables in the classroom as well as seating on the busses. In addition to that we are also looking at desktop dividers and we are discussing that with several vendors.
“We have also received some information from the fire marshal's office,” he added. “They are very concerned with methods of escape in case of a fire. They are very concerned with some of the material that is being used for some of these dividers. We’re going to have to make certain that if we end up using those, it has to be in compliance with state fire marshal regulations. They’re saying that it can’t make up more than ten percent of wall space in a classroom.”
Harper said he has been questioned about infectant wipes, noting the district has been able to secure those, but is paying premium price.
“If any of you are aware of any vendors that are offering disinfectant style wipes, if you could please direct them to me, I would greatly appreciate that,” he said.
Harper said the district is looking to replace areas where water fountains are located with bottle filling stations. “It’s going to be a cleaner process where students, staff and faculty will walk over to the machine and place their bottle under it and that is actually underway,” he said. “We have ordered for every campus to replace the water fountains throughout the campuses before we return to school in August.”
Cooke added, “At any point that they should decide that it is not safe for us to be in school then we’ll go to a virtual option but at this point our only option is to plan for both, which we are actively planning for both.”