Cleaning kids’ school supplies during COVID-19:
WHAT’S A PARENT TO DO?
Whether your child is in hybrid classes or back in school five days a week, they are bringing a host of school supplies back and forth from school as well as their backpack, lunch bag, and face mask. Which do you need to clean, and how, to protect against coronavirus transmission?
Local health experts are quick to urge children to wear masks and wash hands frequently but there is not a lot of information available regarding the best practices for cleaning school supplies. While some experts have said surface contamination is not a major source for spread, given how many surfaces a backpack, for example, will touch, it’s probably not a bad idea to disinfect some items.
Local parents polled informally via the Hello Ridgefield & Fairfield County! Facebook group offered a range of thoughts on cleaning procedures this year.
Julie is not only a mom but also a third-grade teacher at an area school. She spends an extra 20 to 30 minutes nightly cleaning her two children’s school items even though they have not taken much back-and-forth since they have not been getting regular homework yet. “I’m washing my children’s lunch boxes daily. I’ll likely wipe down anything plastic ( homework folders, etc.) on an ‘as needed’ basis. No pencils, pens, calculators, etc. travel to/from school: they’re either here or there,” she said. “Once my kids start bringing their iPads to and from, I’ll wipe them daily when they take them out of their backpacks and before they put them in.”
She said her and her kids’ school clothes go right into the washing machine when they get home from school and all change into PJs. Shoes are left by the door and not tracked around the house. They wear reusable masks that get washed daily and the kids always carry extra masks on them and keep extras in their school cubbies.
As a teacher, she said her school has eliminated shared materials and kids have their own supplies in their desks. “We are also limiting the exchange of materials between teachers by submitting work electronically,” she said, explaining that in order to avoid passing student
workbooks around the school, a teacher might instead photograph an assignment to share with other staff as needed.
However, several parents reported that they are not taking any additional steps and their children know to wash their hands once they get home from school, as well as frequently during the school day.
Many parents said they are having their children change out of their school clothes once they get home. Organizing school supplies into stations or a special area has now become the norm in some homes. “For the in-person days, backpacks get put in one spot now,” Cindie, a parent, said. “I use alcohol wipes to clean anything in them that was used at school, and anything that will be used at home — mainly their laptops. Other supplies that stay in their backpack until the next in-person day, I just leave there.”
Tamara, another parent, set up stations in the garage via a table where all items that went to school get laid out and wiped down with disinfectant wipes. Backpacks get sprayed with disinfectant spray while items that need to be
used for homework come inside and get put at their home desks. “Backpacks, sports bags, and lunch bags get sprayed and hang on hooks at station 2 in the garage,” she said, adding that shoes also get sprayed and placed on a shelf at another station.
Electronics, such as children’s cell phones, iPads, or laptops can be cleaned, but take care to choose wipes or chemicals that will not damage the devices.
In a CNET (a news-based website) article, Dr. Sandra Kesh, deputy medical director and infectious disease specialist at Ryebrook, N.Y.-based Westmed Medical Group, errs on the side of being proactive offering advice to parents. “What I generally recommend is to assume that anything they are bringing home from school is probably dirty in some respect, so what I recommend to parents is to leave the backpack at the front door or side door, or even in the car,” Kesh said.
While the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) website does not have guidelines for parents on cleaning school supplies, it does recommend that schools do normal cleaning with soap and water to decrease the amount of virus present on surfaces to reduce possible exposure and when disinfecting, to use EPA-approved disinfectants (a searchable list is available on its website at epa.gov) or in absence of these disinfectants, a solution of 1/3 cup bleach per gallon of water can be used.
From disinfectant spray sold online by Grove and Blueland to Clorox wipes and Windex Multi-Surface Cleaner, parents have an arsenal of different cleaning solutions at their disposal. Some parents are also changing what kinds of school supplies they send with
their children to school. Sarah, a parent, swears by neoprene washable lunch boxes she found online that are easy to wipe down (or are dishwasher safe). “Lunch boxes harbor so many germs, especially from their little mouths,” she said.