August 12, 2020
Our District has been planning for the reopening of school this fall and how we can reduce the spread of COVID-19. As part of that planning, our Buildings and Grounds Supervisor Mike Bouche has been collaborating with Supervisors from other school districts throughout the area to discuss products, processes, and protocols to help with risk mitigation.
On July 29, 2020 our Board of Education approved the hybrid model of instruction which includes face to face classes Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. This leaves Wednesday with no students in the building, as they will be participating in virtual learning on those days, and it allows our Custodial staff to do more in depth cleaning in our facilities It should be noted that as part of our risk mitigation efforts, our custodial staff are also modifying and increasing cleaning protocols on the other four days of the school week.
Please see below some of the highlighted steps being taken to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our schools:
- Covid updated processes and equipment implemented by the Maintenance / Custodial staff.
- We have been and will continue to add touchless faucets in the higher traffic bathrooms.
- We are adding bottle fillers to each school and restricting access to water fountains.
- We will provide hand sanitizer for classrooms where needed and 1 gallon bottles for each student entry point to the building.
- We have added plexiglass shields to each office and to the food service teller at OFHS
- We will be retooling our cleaning supplies. We will switch to microfiber cleaning towels which will be changed out after cleaning each room.
- We have also outfitted the food service area with microfiber towels for cleaning tables.
- Night staff will continue to work their shift 5 nights a week. Where possible we will push their daily schedules back to have less personal contact with instructional staff. Monday,Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday they will thoroughly clean their assigned areas. Hard surfaces, floors, knobs, touchpoints. When needed they will electrostatically spray high risk areas.
- The cleaning focus for night staff on Wednesdays will be high traffic areas. (Entries, common areas, bathrooms, athletic areas).
- Day staff will help meet the needs of teachers, assist with common areas, and touch up entries.
- They will add to their daily duties an extra cleaning of the high use bathrooms.
- Maintenance staff will do their best to avoid high traffic areas, utilize 6am to 8am to do repairs and use vacant class times to assist with classroom management.
- We will assist with the removal of any hard to clean furniture or rugs.
- We will change the air filters more frequently and modify the influx of outside air when possible.
Dean R Hess
Superintendent of Schools
Mike Bouche
Buildings and Grounds Supervisor