Nassau County students return Tuesday, masks ‘strongly encouraged’

FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. – At Emma Love Hardee Elementary School successful Fernandina Beach, the sanction of the crippled is playing it safe. Principal Rebecca Smith gave News4Jax a walking circuit of what students volition expect connected a emblematic day.

Students volition travel backmost to a batch of the aforesaid information measures they grew acquainted with past year. While masks are not 1 of them, they’re powerfully encouraged. Signs are posted passim the school.

As Smith demonstrated, cleanliness is encouraged earlier students adjacent participate the building. Once they are dropped off-- by car oregon bus-- they’re met with manus sanitizer stations.

“They’ll spell up, they’ll get their sanitation-- their sanitizer, and past they’ll locomotion into the cafeteria,” Smith said.

Once inside, the students are led into the “grab and go” hallway. This is wherever they volition prime up their bagged breakfast. As a precaution, students are told to enactment to the close to let for much abstraction betwixt 1 another.

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“Again, they tin get their sanitation,” Smith said. “Then they tin spell get successful line, get their meal and spell close to class.”

Smith says each classrooms are arranged into cohorts. This is wherever students beryllium unneurotic successful assigned groups passim the day. They adjacent usage the aforesaid sets of supplies to minimize aggregate items being passed from pupil to student.

“That way, we cognize erstwhile we bash our interaction tracing, we cognize who they’re sitting adjacent to astatine each times,” Smith. “Those cohorts person luncheon unneurotic successful the cafeteria arsenic well.”

Cleaning protocols are besides precise thorough astatine methodical. Hours aft the students and teachers person near for the day, the custodians usage an electrostatic disinfectant mister connected each high-touch areas successful each room. This includes table and aboveground tops, doorknobs, and different spots passim the classrooms. A abstracted method is utilized for disinfecting the playground. In all, it takes astir an hr to disinfect the full school.

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Nassau County has 1 of the highest corruption rates per capita successful our area. Smith is paying attraction to the numbers, and says plans are successful spot should a pupil oregon worker request to spell into quarantine. With a caller twelvemonth ahead, Smith says she knows determination are gaps to fill, but her anticipation is students volition travel to school, beryllium acceptable to learn, and tackle each challenges together.

“I’ll archer you Nassau County, fig 1 and fig 2, present we go,” Smith said. “So, I deliberation we’re connected our mode to filling those gaps and propulsion them forward.”

With the pandemic being hard connected everyone, including students and their parents, Smith says a guidance counsellor and scientist are ever connected manus to assistance if needed.

“They scope out, they assistance families, they assistance idiosyncratic students,” Smith said. “Just get done those times due to the fact that it has deed immoderate families precise hard.”

To instrumentality a person look astatine Nassau County Schools’ reopening plan, visit: https://www.nassau.k12.fl.us/cms/lib/FL02213748/Centricity/Domain/1097/Return-to-School%20Safety%20Protocols%20and%20Learning%20Options%20NCSD%202021-2022.pdf

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