Jackson schools’ safety manager says reopening never been as complicated

Jackson School District associate superintendent Keenan Kinder will begin his 24th year in public education when the district reopens for classes Aug. 24.

It is safe to say Kinder, nor any educator, has ever seen anything as complicated as getting ready for the 2020-2021 coronavirus-impacted academic year.

“It’s a small city we’re running here (at Jackson),” said Kinder, who came to the district from Leopold in June 2019.

“We operate (schools) at 10 different sites,” he said, noting Jackson is working a careful plan to make in-person schooling this fall as safe as practically possible.

“We ran a June kids’ camp, and it went well,” said Kinder, 45.

“We’ve been running summer school since July 6, and it’s gone well, too,” he added.

Kinder’s specific administrative portfolio is safety and operations for the largest geographical district in Cape Girardeau County covering more than 283 square miles.

Jackson owns 73 buses and runs 52 routes during the school year.

Of the approximately 5,400 students, fewer than 3,100 rode school buses during the 2019-2020 academic year.

The district will observe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) transportation guidelines.

Among other pandemic-driven recommendations, the CDC suggests a limit to the number of students per row and keeping an empty row between seats.

Mindful of these restrictions, Jackson will be reaching out to families over the next month.

“We’ll encourage parents, if they are able, to bring their non-driving children to school,” Kinder said.

Everyone on the bus will be required to wear a mask — students, drivers and monitors alike.

“We’ll also fill buses from the back to the front as students climb on board,” added Kinder, noting such a protocol will limit students from passing one another in the narrow center aisle.

Inside the buildings, masking will be required in hallways and if students are working in groups.

“At individual classroom desks, it’ll be up to the student to mask or not,” said Kinder, noting “wire-to-wire” masking is not the plan.

“We don’t foresee asking the kids to keep a mask on continuously seven hours a day,” he said.

Other points of interest:

• One-way pedestrian traffic in certain hallways.
• Enter-only and exit-only doors.
• Air purifiers in nurses’ stations.
• Isolation rooms established so parents may retrieve children who may feel ill during the school day.
• HVAC filters will be changed out more often.
• Disinfectant will be sprayed in bathrooms and playgrounds and on desktops.
• Twenty additional water bottle filler fountains have been installed at a cost of $40,000, with 25 more on order.
• Livestreaming of athletic events, concerts and other activities will be made available on the district’s YouTube page, to which families may subscribe.
• Breakfast will be opened sooner and picnic tables will be situated outside the middle school, junior high and high school cafeterias to better socially distance.

Kinder said Jackson has served a grand total of 175,409 meals since COVID-19 shuttered the district in mid-March.

“It’s been an Army’s worth of food,” said Kinder, who noted Jackson has also kept up with its PowerPacks initiative.

Jackson is not planning to host any outside groups in any of its buildings when the new school year starts.

“The custodial staff is working extra hard just to keep things clean for our kids,” Kinder said. The district soon will be adding more janitors, he said.

Financially, Kinder took special note to appreciate the help of Cape Girardeau County’s commissioners.

“The [Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act] money the commission sent us has helped us a lot to get ready for school,” he said.

One item — hand sanitizer — will be present everywhere.

“We’ll have sanitizer that we’ve stockpiled in 55-gallon drums and it will be put out in all of our 1,000 classrooms,” Kinder said. “Actually, everywhere you look — inside our schools, our buses, our playgrounds, our athletic facilities, you name it — sanitizer will be there.”

Jackson will also offer a virtual learning option, Ignite Online, using the district’s own educators, for families who elect to keep their children at home due to COVID-19.