Thought you might like to know that, just this week, the Texas Medical Association came out with a risk assessment scale from one to nine for 36 activities, including:

• Getting restaurant take-out or going grocery shopping: 2
• Going for a walk/run/bike ride or staying at a hotel: 3
• Sitting in a doctor’s waiting room or walking in a busy downtown: 4
• Shopping at the mall or sending kids to school, camp, or day care: 5
• Swimming in a public pool or going to a hair salon: 6
• Eating inside a restaurant or hugging/shaking hands: 7
• Working out in a gym or going to a movie theater: 8
• Attending a religious service with 500+ or going to a bar: 9

Meanwhile, as superintendents weigh their reopening options–outlined in last week’s post–they’re also considering safety measures to put in place once students have been dropped off. With a nod to Education Week’s Madeline Will, these include:

1. To avoid the morning rush into schools, students use different entrances; staggered arrival times are in place, with floors marked with tape for physically distant line-ups.
2. Lockers remain off limits, with more textbooks online to lessen backpack loads.
3. To keep desks six feet apart, removing such furnishings as bookshelves, with  partitions to further separate desks.
4. To minimize movement, kids stay put, core subject teachers move from class to class, with electives offered entirely online.
5. To avoid the sharing of pencils, crayons, etc., kids bring their own supplies, with schools providing them for financially strapped families.
6. Virtual reality sessions and simulations replace in-lab experiments, and/or teachers do the experiments while students observe. Some suggest kids do assigned experiments at home despite potential risks/problems.
7. Cafeterias used as classrooms instead of lunchrooms, with pre-packaged meals served in individual classrooms, no serving lines required.
8. Staggered recess times.
9. All extracurricular activities cancelled.

Think such steps will ensure the safety of students and staff?

With my thanks, Carol