The start of the school year has been many things, awesome, strange, exciting, challenging, stressful and joyful. While we are trying to make the school experience as normal for our kids as can be, there are several things that we have done to make it as safe as possible.
One of the biggest changes is the change of our morning drop off and afternoon pick up areas. We have now spread out each grade around the building to enter through a different entrance. We marked all these spots with numbers and have a number for every child to stand on while they wait to go inside. A map was sent out to parents so they know the new procedures. This did require 5 times the number of people to help supervise in the mornings then before, but all are getting used to this change.
Another major change was a lunchtime. One of our classes from every grade now eats in their classroom. The other two classes have seating charts in the lunchroom. Lunch benches had to be numbered, seating charts and a map of the lunchroom had to be created. This is an ongoing process as all of these things have to be updated every time we get a new student (which has happened daily the first week of school). Even though we have 60 less people eating in the lunchroom each day, we still needed to bring in 6-8 extra tables to get students spread out while eating. The seats are arranged so that no one has a person sitting directly across from them. Students enter with their masks on and only remove them long enough to eat their meal. They then put their masks back on. Students then get their hands sanitized before going out to recess. This has been a huge adjustment for all of us as helping 5-10 year olds find the number of their seat every day, and remembering if they are eating in their classroom or in the gym/cafeteria has been a non-stop job. This new method also required at least twice the number of adults to manage this new routine. We have gotten better and better each day.
Other minor changes we have made or marking one way arrows throughout the hallways, covering our drinking fountains and trying to find ways to get students drinks when they forgot to bring their water bottles, has been another minor changes that we have not had to worry about before.
All staff our trying very hard to keep everyone’s hands sanitized and cleaned many times throughout the day, as well as wiping off surfaces every chance we get. It has been a total team effort with all our staff really stepping up and doing everything we can to keep our kids in school.
Of course wearing masks has been another change, but the kids are all doing great with this. We have them wear their masks everywhere, the only time they really have a chance to have a little mask break would be when they are eating and drinking, or if they can physical distance at PE and recess. We are just trying to teach kids that if they can’t physical distance, no matter where they are, then the mask has to be on. We are also trying to help our parents do the same when they are dropping off and picking up their children. Most of our parents have cooperated with this request as well.
While there have been many challenges, the staff, students and parents at North Park are all working together to make this the safest experience we can under these very unique circumstances.