Healthy Indoors | 19
S
tudents in Andover, Mass., barely closed their lap-
tops on the 2019/2020 school year when parent Jes-
sica O'Neill posted a message on a local Facebook
group. "Does anyone know a teacher I can hire to
teach my children and my friends' children in the
safety of my home?" she asked. More than 100
people responded to the post in an hour. Not with
names of teachers to hire but asking O'Neill if their children could
also be taught in her home.
Major media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington
Post, and Bloomberg News have all recently called these phenome-
na "micro-schools" or "school pods/cohorts." Different than home
schooling, parents nationwide are now looking to hire retired or current
K-12 teachers and/or tutors to use the local school district's expected
online curriculum to educate their children. But the key phrase that
caught people's attention in O'Neill's post was "safety of my home."
"I don't even know what a safe school environment looks like, never
mind in a pandemic," O'Neill said.
She's not alone. The shear volume of information and guidance on
what re-opened schools should look like from a health and safety per-
spective is an every-day, every-hour story. In order for parents to send
their children to school, they must believe schools will not only be safe
spaces for their children and teachers but going back to school build-
ings won't bring back the COVID-19 virus into their homes.
In CDC re-opening guidance for schools, normal routine clean-
ing with soap and water will decrease how much of the virus is on
surfaces and objects. Disinfection using EPA-approved products
for COVID-19 can also help reduce risk. It's expected that teachers
and staff will have to frequently clean surfaces in the classroom
throughout the day.
