NV5 has been assisting local school districts in the Richland, Washington area as they prepared for reopening following the COVID-19 shutdowns. We have also assisted them in reviewing the implementation of the return to school protocols once students were back in the buildings. This assistance included a review of the plans and procedures developed by the school districts, interviews with district and school staff, and physical walkthroughs of each building to review the actual preparations and classroom set-ups.
Key areas of the review included student arrival and departure, social distancing in the classrooms and hallways, teacher workrooms and breakrooms, cafeteria set-up for serving lunch in a socially distant manner, control of communal use items such as lab and art supplies, review of recess and control of playground equipment, and application of cleaning protocols. Recommendations were made during the walkthroughs and staff questions were addressed.
The reopening of the Pasco School District facilities was reviewed by Washington Governor, Jay Inslee, during a visit to the area. His comments were:
This has been a very inspirational trip for me to be at Robert Frost in Pasco. We have seen a school that is helping kids, where the educators are thrilled to be with their students, where parents are thrilled that their kids are now getting a better academic experience and it was just so inspiring to me to see what you’ve been able to do here, because we believe that this can be done across the state of Washington. We believe we can do the contract tracing and the masking. You’ve demonstrated you can do this safely here in Pasco and we’re confident the people who are solution-oriented can get together and do this essentially in every school across the State of Washington. It’s a good news story of Pasco today.
NV5 is proud of our role in assisting the Pasco School District with its re-opening efforts.
We are providing ongoing support to the local districts as recommendations change. For example, the CDC released guidance stating that student social distancing can be reduced to three feet. The desks would be closer together than in a standard classroom. This policy change may result in local districts being allowed to bring all students back and resume a near-normal class schedule. We have been working with the Richland School District to assist them in this effort.