Student safety takes priority in CUSD reopening plan
CALEXICO — Calexico Unified School District’s opening plan for when the 2020-21 school year begins Monday is about 113 pages long, but it can be broken down into four main topics.
CUSD administrators provided a short overview of the plan during the school board’s regular board meeting Aug. 13.
The four cornerstones of the plan are health and safety, facilities and operations, mental health and well-being, and teaching and learning.
Teachers, staff and administrators spent the summer working in four subcommittees that each focused on one of those areas of emphasis.
Superintendent Carlos R. Gonzales said the plan is subject to change based on guidance the district may receive from state and local health authorities.
Planning in the area of health and safety will include installation of temperature-taking apparatuses at its campuses.
All district employees and, eventually, students will walk through the screening apparatus, which will take their temperature.
The device has a 0.54-degree variance, which means its reading can be a little more than a half degree above or below a person’s actual temperature. A person will be sent home if his or her measured temperature is 100.4 degrees or higher.
The screening devices can be outdoors and still function in up to 113 degrees heat.
Handheld, no-touch thermometers will also be available to use at each school site.
Additionally, the district will also be implementing a phone app that teachers will use at the start of each day.
The app will ask teachers to check off any symptoms they’re experiencing, such as loss of taste or smell.
The information will then be relayed to the office at their respective school, whereupon the school will know that they need to call in a substitute to fill in for the ill teacher.
Also at each school site, principals will be required to fill out an inspection form each month.
The form will include 15 points of interest. A principal will walk around the campus, and inspect each of the 15 points.
For example, one point would be the school’s lounge area, and whether or not that lounge has the same limited seating as originally set out at the beginning of the school year.
Another point would be talking to custodians and ensuring that classrooms are still being cleaned the way they’re supposed to be cleaned.
The district is also ordering signs, which read, “Wear your mask” or “Social Distancing, 6 feet apart,” that will be hung throughout campuses.
New procedures will be implemented to ensure students have safe access to transportation services (bus rides).
All students will be required to wear face masks while on a bus.
Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Cesar L. Vega said during the Aug. 13 presentation the district will work with its special education department to come up with a plan for special education students who aren’t able to wear a face mask for whatever reason.
Bus drivers will also be taking each student’s temperature.
If a fever is registered, special education students will be asked to remain at home with their caretaker or parent.
For other students, their temperatures will be taken at loading zones before they step on the bus.
Vega explained that, because of this, the district will rely on students arriving at loading zones earlier in the morning, so the bus driver can have time to screen each student.
In the event a parent or guardian is not at home when a student has a high temperature, then the district will separately transport that student to another school site, where the student will wait for a parent to arrive.
Each bus will also be equipped with seating charts. As part of the district’s opening plan, each bus will only be allowed to carry a certain number of students.
“It’s going to create an issue of, we may have to go back several times throughout the mornings to pick up groups of students,” Vega said. “We just have to adhere to it.”