Safety measures in place, 70,000 masks waiting

by John McLoone With students getting acclimated to returning to school in the COVID-19 environment in coming days, Hastings Schools Superintendent Robert McDowell introduced safety measures taken in district schools.

McDowell and the district put together a video presentation with him starting the “show” by putting on his Hastings Raider- logoed face mask and walking through the door with new signage in place. The Hastings School Board reviewed the video at its board meeting Wednesday, Aug. 26.

“I’m proud to be the superintendent for Hastings Public Schools,” he said. “I’d like to take a moment and share with you some of the things we have in place to keep our students and staff safe and mitigate risk in our buildings.”

The signs alert people that face masks are required beyond the point of entry in each building and also another sign asking people not to enter if they have a cough or fever.

“As we move into buildings, you’ll see reminders that we want to maintain social distance, at a minimum of six feet apart from one another,” said McDowell.

See SAFETY MEASURES Page 2

Hastings School District Superintendent Robert McDowell talked about signage on district school doors.

Hastings School District Superintendent Robert McDowell wore a mask as he led a video tour of safety precautions. Saftey measures

From Page 1 Preparation has been key to getting the school year off to a good start, and the district has pallets and pallets of products ready to keep students safe.

“We have over 70,000 masks as you can see in the boxes on the pallets here, and those masks come in child size or two versions for an adult. And we know that we’ll have situations where students won’t have a mask, so we have thousands of disposable masks that we can give to students and staff,” he said.

The district has also purchased thousands of face shields and is taking countless other measures. School lunches will be registered with ID cards with barcodes.

“Students won’t have to punch in their number. Instead, we will just scan when we need to scan, again creating a contactless situation throughout the building,” he said.

The district has four pallets of gallon- size hand sanitizer, and there will be stations all over the place.

There are two kinds of cleaning solutions for teachers and maintenance in classrooms.

One cleaner is for a 60-second disinfection and one is for a more thorough 10-minute cleaning. If there is a situation where a student can’t wear a mask, portable desktop barriers will be in place.

“For students who can’t wear masks, we will have versions of desktop barriers, so that when a student needs a barrier, you can set it on a desk, and it’s portable,” said McDowell.

The district is also doing much to improve building airflow.

“While each building in Hastings schools is different, there are two things we’re doing to increase both filtration and to increase air flow,” he said.

Filters have been replaced and systems have been fine-tuned to make sure airflow is as strong as it can be in district buildings.

McDowell showed how distancing is done in classrooms, where rooms that have tables instead of individual desks are labeled with stickers showing where students can sit.

“Even in our rooms that do not have individual desks, we have marked desks with blue and gold stickers, so that class by class, a teacher can maintain social distancing for all of our students,” said Mc-Dowell.

Then the mini-tour moved to the school buses.

McDowell boarded the bus, and of course his first move was sanitizing those hands.

“Immediately when students get onto a bus, they will use hand sanitizer, and they will use hand sanitizer as they leave the bus. In addition to that, our buses will have extra masks and extra face shields, in case students should need to use them,” said McDowell. “Our bus drivers will have sanitizing wipes, sanitizing spray and additional cleaning materials on every bus, so that we can sanitize our buses in between routes.”

Students are distanced in seating on the bus, as well.

If you want to see the safety protocols for yourself, check out the video on the school district website.

“Thank you for taking a moment to watch this video and allowing us to share with you some of the things we are doing to mitigate risk and keep everyone as safe