TYLER, Texas — As students all over the country prepare to go back to school this fall, local school districts are putting the final touches on their return to campus plans.
At Chapel Hill ISD, their staff members have been working non-stop to make sure any necessary changes are made before students return on August 20.
"We've been here on the site the whole time and we use the CDC, TEA, their guidance to adjust different things at the school," Jason Godbold, the facilities director for Chapel Hill ISD, said.
Godbold says his team has put in new sneeze guards and hand sanitizing stations throughout the campuses. The district has also purchased sanitizing equipment that can be used to disinfect classrooms.
"If a child or a student or a teacher becomes ill. You know we will remove everyone from that classroom, Godbold said. "If possible based on guidance, we would leave that room, that space, empty for 24 hours and come back in and disinfect it."
Students will be encouraged to wash their hands frequently and older students will be asked to wear masks. In the classroom, desks will be spread apart as much as possible, but that can be difficult to do at time.
"They want us to have that six feet distance in the classrooms," Godbold said. "And so that is ultimately what we will want to do in any classroom but we also realized that the classrooms aren't big enough to do that, if you know we have a classroom that has 20 students show up. If that's the case, then we arrange them as best as we can."
Jason's wife Heidi is an instructional coach at the district's junior high school. She says she's been working with the faculty around the clock to make sure that both in class and virtual curriculum are seamless.
"We're kind of do a blended aspect of it, and so some of our teachers are going to have face-to-face classes and then some of our teachers are going to be managing the online aspect," Heidi said. "Some of them are going to be blended in that area where say, they have eight class periods, three of their classes will be online. During that time, they're working with kids online. Then the other four would be where they're actually teaching face-to-face. So it kind of gives a mix so that way, not one teacher is fully online and one teacher is in house. They're all kind of a mix, which we think is a really neat way to do it."
Some faculty members are already making classroom preparations on campus. Their goal is to make sure that the in-class assignments and online assignments line up, just in case a parent wants to switch their child's instruction method.
"Even though we're remotely working with them, it's not the same as if they're in the classroom and they get stuck on something," Heidi said. "We can, we can tell they're stuck. "When we're visiting with them online, you have distance between you and you don't want them to get frustrated and give up. So we're really looking at each exercise and making sure, does this make sense? Do we need to adapt this?"
Chapel Hill ISD has their full plan for a safe return to campus learning on their website.