COVID-19 Return to School Recommendations
from the Missouri Art Educators Association

The following recommendations are being made by the Missouri Art Education Association to help guide school administrators and visual arts teachers K-12, as they return to face to face instruction in the fall. These recommendations are meant to support a rigorous and well-rounded visual art education experience for all students, while keeping the health and safety of staff and students as a priority. All efforts should be made to modify activities to avoid canceling visual art education classes.

Scheduling

1. To avoid transmission to all classes in the school, we recommend that elementary and some middle schools divide the specials into quarters (trimester or semester--divide into times based on number of specials) completing all instruction for the year, by seeing the smaller group of students everyday for the quarter, then rotating to a different group.
2. We recommend that districts avoid having teachers who travel between buildings, but if necessary they should not take materials/supplies from one building to another without proper disinfection.
3. Schedule outdoor art if possible.

Classroom/Space Management

1. Art rooms should be furnished with many long narrow rectangle tables or individual horizontally flat student desks to allow for adequate and appropriate workspace with social distancing.
2. Tables/desks should be arranged so as to face in the same direction with students sitting on only one side.
3. We recommend that art rooms have at least one sink, to offer a location to wash hands and disinfect media/tools/equipment.
4. If visual art teachers are to travel from one room to another (art on a cart), it is recommended that the cart not enter the room, and that any supplies that enter the classroom stay unless they can be disinfected before entering the next classroom. Therefore, artwork will remain in the students home classroom.

Instructional Considerations

1. Consider lessons supporting the art curriculum that focus on presenting, responding, and connecting to art rather than always creating.
2. Consider self-management/individualized student lessons with multiple activity stations allowing for personal choice with personal recording (record keeping, personalized logs, goal-setting, etc.) With no rotation between stations during class.
3. Use blended learning/flipped instruction to avoid close contact during instruction, especially for demonstrations. Teachers should have access to adequate technology to support learning from a social distance. e.g.: document cameras, projectors/interactive whiteboards, multiple computers or tablets. 4. Consider digital art lessons (graphic design, photography, stylus drawing, etc.) to provide art-making experiences, especially if hands-on art-making is not possible, and/or if a school is one to one with technology for students.

Supply Management and Disinfection

1. Teachers should demonstrate proper hand washing and cleaning of tools, equipment and media so that students can properly clean shared items when appropriate.
2. If students need to share media/tools/equipment, students should wash or use hand sanitizer before entering art and before leaving.
3. Limit media within each lesson, to lessen the need to disinfect materials, especially if supplies are shared.
4. If students are required to have individual media/tools:
a. If provided by the school, safe storage will need to be provided in the art room, or home classroom.
b. If provided by the student, safe storage will need to be provided in the home classroom and brought to art class. Supplies should NOT go home daily in backpacks, unless they can be disinfected when coming back to school. Schools should support students who cannot afford their media/tools with materials from the art room.
c. If the school is needing to provide individual media/tools or support students who don’t have their own, additional financial support for art media/tools may be necessary.
5. If teachers need to disinfect classroom surfaces, media, tools or equipment between classes provide adequate time, materials and/or personnel to complete the task.
6. When possible, consider a staggered product schedule for use of school media/tools by class. (e.g.: pastels for class 1, paint for class 2, scissors for class 3) giving time to sanitize between use.
7. Clay (regular, modeling, etc) recommendations
a. After handling clay you should wash hands according to CDC guidelines.
b. While open clay is drying or being stored between lessons, it should be stored in a safe place away from where others can touch it.
c. Any clay issued to students should not be shared, and treated as suggested above when the lesson is complete.
d. When possible, teachers should develop simple hand-building lessons that require no shared supplies, or use disposable supplies/tools when possible - plastic spoons, craft sticks, straws, etc.
8. Possible disinfection techniques: a. UV light for shared media/tools/equipment that can’t be washed quickly or exposed to liquids. (See Suggested Resources) b. Have containers of liquid disinfectant that tools can be placed in until used again. c. Use sprayable or aerosol disinfectants (per district recommendations and rules) with proper ventilation.
9. All disinfectant supplies should be from general building budgets, and not affect the art supplies budget.
10.We recommend open top trash containers.
11.Digital art materials need to have protocols for cleaning, between students.

Suggested Resources:

Spectroline Germicical UV Sterilizing Lamps https://www.fishersci.com/shop/products/spectroline-germicidal-uv-sterilizing-lamps2/11992103#?keyword=Ultraviolet+Lamps+and+Bulbs

Economy Ultraviolet Google Sanitizers https://www.fishersci.com/shop/products/economy-ultraviolet-goggle-sanitizers-2/p2379556#?keyword=Ultraviolet+disenfectant