Highmark program to provide schools with sanitizing supply kits

Schools across the country are experiencing a need for personal protective equipment and cleaning products unlike ever before as they prepare to open the 2020-21 academic year amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

With that need in mind, Highmark decided to launch a program to provide more than 400 schools in Pennsylvania and Delaware with tool kits filled with supplies to help protect the health and safety of students and staff.

“We thought, ‘How could we help the schools as they transition back to school?’” Anthony Benevento, Highmark’s market president of Western Pennsylvania, said last week in a phone interview. “That’s when we came up with the idea of putting together for them a tool kit program.”

Highmark will send letters to school districts under its coverage this week with information about how to receive the tool kits. The health insurance organization covers dozens of schools in southwestern Pennsylvania, including most of the 43 districts in Allegheny County.

The tool kits will contain adjustable face shields for teachers and staff members, adjustable face masks for students, disinfectant hand wipes, one-gallon pumps of hand sanitizer, and signage advising best practices.

“We’ll have a lot of posters that will promote safe practices like social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing,” Mr. Benevento said.

The signage is available to all schools, including those outside of Highmark’s coverage, on the organization’s website.

The insurer also is developing a program to assist schools in West Virginia this year, according to Highmark spokeswoman Emily Beatty. Details remain in the works.

Equipment included in the tool kits will be distributed based on student and staff populations at each school, and districts will have until Dec. 15 to order the supplies.

Mr. Benevento said Highmark will give districts several months to order the tool kits because schools are reopening on various dates, with some not planning for in-person instruction until at least October or November.

“They’re planning different times to go back,” he said. “We’re leaving it up to the schools to order the supplies when they’re ready for it.”