There is great anxiety surrounding the return of CSEC and CAPE students to school amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Many are worried that schools will not be adequately equipped to deal with students. However, from what our news team has observed several schools are in preparation mode, putting up signs and hand sanitizing stations. Work is also being done in classrooms to ensure that students will be sitting at the appropriate distance apart from each other.
Across the corporate area, school administrators are meeting and discussing plans to move forward. At the St Andrew High school for girls, classes are being retrofitted to accommodate 11 students per class, down from the usual 40. The Operations Manager told our news team that not all students will return on Monday but a select number will be allowed per day.
A disclosure that is in line with Tuesday’s announcement by the Minister with responsibility for Education, Youth, and Information Karl Samuda that schools were now being cleaned to facilitate the return of students to the physical classroom.
“Seating is being arranged six feet apart for the average classroom of twenty-four by twenty-four. This means there will only be ten students and a teacher that can be accommodated in the existing facilities.”
Over at the Port Antonio High school, administrators have acquired digital infrared forehead thermometers to check temperatures of student and staff upon entry. Seating arrangements are also been made.
“We are considering how do you come into the plant (school), how do you get to the classroom, how do you operate during that contact time in terms of teacher students and how it is that you get relieved during the time. It can’t be how we use to operate,” says Principal Graham. “The furniture is placed in a 36 square foot of each other so each person has breathing space.”
Principal Basil Graham says the administration is also putting in place entry and re-entry protocols for students.
“We don’t know who is coming from where and we just want to make sure there is no cross-contamination,” he says. “We are just assuming. We are not going to take it for granted. So we are going to make that our mantra here so we protect ourselves.”
