The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has released its guidelines for reopening schools.

Some of the guidelines include the following:

o Ensure that student and staff groupings are as static as possible by having the same group of

children stay with the same staff (all day for young children, and as much as possible for older

children).

o Restrict mixing between groups.

o Cancel all field trips, inter-group events, and extracurricular activities (Step 1).

o Limit gatherings, events, and extracurricular activities to those that can maintain social

distancing, support proper hand hygiene, and restrict attendance of those from higher

transmission areas (Step 2; Note: restricting attendance from those in Step 1 areas).

o Restrict nonessential visitors, volunteers, and activities involving other groups at the same

time.

o Space seating/desks to at least six feet apart.

o Turn desks to face in the same direction (rather than facing each other), or have students sit on

only one side of tables, spaced apart.

o Close communal use spaces such as dining halls and playgrounds if possible; otherwise stagger

use and disinfect in between use.

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o If a cafeteria or group dining room is typically used, serve meals in classrooms instead. Serve

individually plated meals and hold activities in separate classrooms and ensure the safety of

children with food allergies.

o Stagger arrival and drop-off times or locations, or put in place other protocols to limit close

contact with parents or caregivers as much as possible.

o Create social distance between children on school buses (for example, seating children one

child per seat, every other row) where possible.

The Washoe County School District is working towards reopening its schools in August. It has been looking at the CDC guidelines and the governor's directives as it makes decisions. Officials say there will be many challenges.

"Even with hygiene, the gallons and gallons of sanitizer, for example, that we'll be purchasing in order to e prepared is a lot," Paul LaMarca, WCSD Chief Strategies Officer said.

Many of the CDC guidelines are centered around social distancing, including the separation of desks by six feet.

"We may be down to 10 students per room if it's enhanced," LaMarca said. "That's far under capacity so that means that we'll probably have a presence both in terms of online learning, as well as within the building."

Keeping students apart on buses is another issue. The CDC guidelines call for one student per seat in every other row when possible.

"You're taking a bus that may have a capacity of say 60 to 70 students down to 15," LaMarca said. "So how many more bus routes does that affect? Start times. Does that mean you have a staggered schedule?"

The WCSD Recovery Task Force is looking to solve some of these problems. It is made up of about 50 parents, teachers, administrators, association representatives and public health officials. It is working with the COVID-19 Task Force that was created in March, as schools closed. There are task forces within that focus on different issues.

"We are looking at screening protocols," LaMarca said. "We have a task force looking at vulnerable populations. We have a task force looking at pros and cons of different potential models."

LaMarca expects school to reopen in time for the next school year but he does not think it will be what it was before. That is why the school district is planning for the worst but with multiple contingencies for staff, students and families.

"They want to know what school is going to look like," LaMarca said. "I think all of us would like to be able to return to what we thought of as normalcy and we know we're not likely going back to where we were."

You can view the CDC guidelines for schools by clicking the link below.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/schools.html

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