KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With students planning on returning to in-person learning Aug. 20, Rockhurst High School gave 41 Action News an exclusive look into how the school plans to maintain social distancing and keep both students and staff safe.
“We are very optimistic of the plan that we have in terms of trying to mitigate and protect people’s safety,” Rockhurst High School President David Laughlin said.
Laughlin is one of nine members on the school’s Task Force to Reopen Schools, which has meet three times each week since June. The task force has been consulting with doctors, hospitals and architects and looking at CDC guidelines to “re-engineer” the school building to allow for social distancing.
The school’s cafeteria, library and common spaces, for example, have been transformed into classrooms where desks have been measured and marked six feet apart.
“We have seven large spaces we’ve converted into spaces to allow that density to be appropriate for safety,” Laughlin said. “We’re fortunate to have those spaces. There’s many of these large spaces that those who proceeded us might never have imagined we’d be using them for this.”
Before students or staff arrive at school, each day they will be required to fill out an electronic health screening survey. It consists of four questions, including has the individual been on a plane or traveled to a “hot-spot” in the past two weeks, come into close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, been told by a health official about potential exposure to the virus or experienced any symptoms.
The start time for school will be staggered. Every student and staff member will be required to enter through a specific entrance, walking past a machine that reads each person’s temperature.
If an individual has a fever or develops symptoms throughout the day, that person will be escorted to an “isolation room” where there is a “air scrubber.”
“It has been it’s been challenging for all of us," said Father Vincent Giacabazi, the principal. "It’s a worldwide sacrifice no matter who you are or what your background is, socioeconomic status. It’s a challenge for all of us and each of us is making our sacrifices."
One of those “sacrifices” includes not eating lunch in the cafeteria or gathering in previously used common spaces. This year, lunch will be delivered to student desks. Some stairwells have also been limited to one direction in an effort to keep people moving in the same direction while social distancing.
The school is offering both in-person and online learning.
“We’ll have a little bit of a learning curve to go through with our kids because this is a culture change, a human change,” Giacabazi said. "It’s not human to be distanced from another human being, but yet we are going to live into that reality as best we can."
