School Entry and Operational Protocols
As school leaders face upcoming openings, several protocols below are being employed and vetted by school leaders.
Temperature Checks at the entry:
Running some quick calculations, a typical temperature reading and recording can be done in 30 seconds. A school of 300 kids plus 50 staff would yield an entry time of nearly 3 hours. This is not going to work well, there is a better way. I recommend using an app based approach and have the parents take the child's temperature at home, ask a series of questions (have you been in contact with more than 10 people, are you feeling tired, etc.). This can then be emailed to the school or through the app within 60 minutes of school entry. This will hopefully leave a few more sick children at home vs. coming to school and thus creating a "pre-clear" entry protocol. The last thing we want is to have a long line-up and kids congregating outside. The logging of temps and students names will also be easier to manage if done at home vs. at the school door. This can also help with pre-screening for buses.
While I do not have a position on the efficacy of temperature checks as a reliable means of finding who is sick and who is not (obviously asymptomatic kids will not get picked up), temperature checks are occurring in wide scale. We have to make it efficient and move the kids into the building as fast as possible.
The best way to "intercept" kids/teachers is at home and moving to app based or facetime check-ins will shorten the entry time processing at the school as well as keep sick kids home and off the bus. Will parents have to abide by a honor code, of course. But using technology has to be a tool in a school's toolbox.
Thermographic scanning can also be used at high traffic entries and an isolation area should be created when people are identified with high temperatures.
More entries for processing as well as staggering entries by last name or grade as an example will alleviate some congestion at the entries as well.
Before you build a large entry portico or "re-imagine" your gym, try operational entry protocols first and then tweak them. We are already anticipating many virtual days of learning which will help reduce the student flow.
What is the best way to avoid virus transmission? Keep infected people out, get students into their classrooms as efficiently as possible and quickly move infected people out of the school.