The use of a cloth face covering by students and staff are required where six foot social distancing cannot occur. If there is a health reason for which students or staff believe they may not be able to wear a cloth face covering, a healthcare provider should be contacted. A written statement from a medical doctor on official letterhead / form shall suffice for an exemption. Students will be taught how to use face coverings, including cleaning and how to put on and off.

Mask Down Times can occur when:

• students are socially distanced and stationary (6+ feet from others)

• the classroom is outdoors

• students are eating breakfast or lunch

Mask Down Zones are:

• areas marked off in classrooms where students can safely, but temporarily, remove their masks (if possible).

• used with teacher approval.

Sound Amplification

• When practical, teachers will utilize their Redcat classroom amplification system in order for students to hear better when talking through masks and for aiding students participating online via a computer.

We will be implementing many efforts to socially distance our students as much as possible including but not limited to:

• Assessing and altering classroom seating arrangements to better utilize the entire classroom and create more space between our students, including facing desks in the same orientation, the addition of more individual desks and plastic dividers to separate student workspace when six feet of social distance is not possible.

• Marking hallways with social distancing dots on the base of the wall and in the classroom to assist with social distancing.

• Teaching and enforcing students to wait, socially distanced, outside of the bathrooms when the facilities are at capacity.

• Altering school assemblies to smaller groups with information broadcast for students in classrooms or at home.

• Altering specials classes to be held in students' classroom when possible.

Our efforts include but are not limited to the following:

• Routine cleaning procedures and schedule for facilities and transportation.

• Altering and increasing cleaning schedules and procedures to meet the needs of keeping our classrooms sanitized on a daily basis and as needed.

• Disinfecting the following items after each student use: shared classroom seating, dry erase markers, math and literacy manipulatives, and shared recess or music equipment.

• Disinfecting the following office items throughout the school day: hand railings, restrooms, bottle filling stations, sinks, paper towel dispensers, door knobs/handles, light switches, pencil sharpeners, counter tops, and the Raptor system.

• Disinfecting the following classroom items daily: single student desks/tables, coat hooks, and plastic dividers.

• Implementing protocols of leaving classroom doors open whenever possible to minimize the number of hands touching door handles.

• Disinfecting classroom and library books.

• Disinfecting any used COVID-19 isolation areas (areas where students wait to get picked up).

• Implementing protocols that allow students to remain in the same classroom while teachers move from room to room, if the grade is departmentalized.

• Students will not be charged with the task of cleaning for COVID-19.

• Administration, teachers and staff will teach and reinforce proper hand washing during key times throughout the day.

  • Arrival and dismissal

  • Before, during, and after preparing or eating food

  • After using the bathroom

  • After blowing one’s nose, coughing, or sneezing

  • After touching objects with bare hands that have been handled by other people

Our efforts include but are not limited to:

• A full time nurse is available in our school district.

• Health inspections being completed weekly by the school nurse.

• Three additional quarantine/isolation spaces provided for symptomatic students and monitored by the school nurse, school administrative assistant, or building principal.

Our efforts include but are not limited to:

• All persons who are sick are expected to stay home. Those persons who become sick will be sent home.

• Hand sanitizer provided to students and staff in every classroom, at entrances and throughout our building.

• Additional touch free water bottle filling stations have been placed throughout the building. Students will be encouraged to bring water bottles.

• Classroom snacks will be distributed by the teacher on a sanitary surface, for those classrooms partaking in afternoon snacks.

• Birthday treats MUST be pre-packaged and allergy-safe.

• Students should use their own materials.

• Non-essential visitors, volunteers, and outside groups will be limited.

• The CDC recommends coughing/sneezing into your mask, if no, turn away from people and cough/sneeze into your elbow.

• Signs promoting everyday protective measures will be posted throughout the building. These signs have been made available by the CDC and Department of Public Health.

Our efforts to transport students to and from school include but are not limited to:

• Encouraging parents who can arrange to transport their children to and from school to please do so, in an effort to reduce the number of students on buses.

• Applying hand sanitizer as students and drivers enter the bus.

• Requiring cloth face coverings for students and drivers.

• Assigning seats to every student (households may be assigned to sit together).

• Disinfecting our buses between morning and afternoon routes.

• Prohibiting food or drink on the bus.

Arrival

• • Bus students will wait on the bus until the 8:00am bell.

  • Non-bus riding students arriving at 7:50am and do not eat breakfast, will line up in various areas marked with social distancing dots by grade along the steps and sidewalk. Two paraeducators will be outside BEGINNING at 7:50am to assist students in lines.

  • Masks should be worn before entering the building.

New protocols will be in place for students eating breakfast. They include, but are not limited to:

• • Seating siblings together at the tables in the lunchroom for breakfast in order to preserve as many six foot social distancing spots as possible.

  • If the lunchroom fills to capacity during breakfast, overflow students will eat in the art room.

New protocols will be in place for lunch. They include, but are not limited to:

• • Lunch delivery to classrooms where students will eat.

  • Eliminating lunch guests. Parents may, however, choose to take their child from building during lunch.

Dismissal

• • Masks stay on until non-bus riders leave the building and masks stay on for bus riders until exiting the bus.

  • The end of the day will be slightly staggered, unnoticeable to those outside of the building.

    • 3:10 bus riders leave classroom into the lunchroom and 3:15 non-bus riders

  • Students dismissed to the bus line will form a line 6 feet apart in the lunchroom, out of the walkways of teachers walking non-bus riders to the doors, and will be told to walk to the bus by the bus duty teachers.

    • All TK-4 teachers are expected to walk their non-bus riders to either the front or south doors.

    • No students will be allowed to walk through the library.

  • Adults supervising bus riding students will allow them to board the busses after the hallways clear and busses have arrived.

• Students should wash hands before and after recess.

• No masks are required by students or staff, however, students and staff should walk directly to their classroom to put on masks before any other tasks.

• Maintain 6 feet or more from other students as much as possible.

• Shared equipment (balls, jump ropes, etc.) will be disinfected after each use.

• The elementary will close the playground structures area. Students may play on the blacktop and on the grass field.

• When lining up, students should utilize the social distancing dots on the blacktop

Recognizing that the library is a critical component of an elementary student's education, we will be implementing many efforts to safely utilize books including but not limited to:

• • The elementary library space will be closed to students.

  • Elementary students will be given a "menu" of topics, authors, etc. to complete from which teachers, paras, and the librarian will choose books and take to the child. Older students may utilize the online catalog Alexandria from which they can request books.

  • Books needing returned to the library will be collected in the classroom and returned to the library by an adult.

  • Library staff will disinfect returned books.

Iowa High School Music Association (Specific details are coming soon)

Art equipment and materials should be shared as little as possible. If objects are shared, they should be disinfected between classes.

Iowa High School Music Association (Specific details are coming soon)

Six feet social distance should be implemented whenever possible

Music equipment should be shared as little as possible. If objects are shared, they should be disinfected between classes.

Specific details coming soon.

• • Six feet social distance should be implemented whenever possible

  • PE classes should focus more on individual skill activities with limited sharing of objects. If objects are shared, they should be disinfected between classes.

  • Students should wash hands before and after PE

More than ever, we understand how important it is to attend to the social and emotional needs that arise during times like these. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) offers a powerful means to explore and express our emotions, build relationships, and support each other – children and adults alike.

The Leader in Me

• Grundy Center is beginning its second year of The Leader in Me. Leader in Me is a whole school improvement model that uses teaching practices to promote social and emotional learning for students in grades kindergarten through fourth grade. Leader in Me takes an organizational approach to engage all members of the school community, including professional learning that focuses on helping teachers collaboratively create a school culture where students and adults practice social emotional learning through a leadership lens as part of their everyday school experience. Leader in Me also provides yearlong, free-standing lessons for each grade-level that classroom teachers may utilize.

Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA)

• Staff are becoming trained how to use DESSA to screen students and how to use the results to match interventions which will benefit students so that they may lead happy, successful and productive lives. The DESSA has become the gold standard when it comes to screening, assessing and strengthening social-emotional competence for youth.

Love and Logic

• All current and new to our building staff are trained in Love and Logic. Love and Logic focuses on helping children develop personal responsibility, self-control and good decision making skills. Love and Logic also focuses on nurturing long-term relationships and reinforcing good character.

People with COVID-19 have had a wide range of symptoms reported – ranging from mild symptoms to severe illness. Symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure to the virus. People with these symptoms may have COVID-19:

• Fever or chills (100.4)

• Cough

• Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing

• Fatigue

• Muscle or body aches

• Headache

• New loss of taste or smell

• Sore throat

• Congestion or runny nose

• Nausea or vomiting

• Diarrhea

This list does not include all possible symptoms. CDC will continue to update this list as we learn more about COVID-19.

*Students or staff displaying symptoms listed above should report to the office and will be monitored by the school nurse in the quarantine/isolation space.