Morgan County Schools focused on school bus safety for new year

Waay 31 is your back to school information station!

We have the most up-to-date information for the re-opening of schools all across north alabama.

This morning, we're focusing on morgan county schools.

First - we want to share two important dates with you: august 12-th and august 19-th.

Those are the dates students return to classes.

On-campus students go back on wednesday, august 12-th.

Off-campus students begin a week later on wednesday, august 19-th.

Safety - as always - is the primary concern.

That begins with the early morning bus ride.

And as waay 31 evening news anchor dan shaffer shows us, morgan county school buses are tuned up, cleaned up and ready to roll.

During a normal school year, around 4-thousand students ride the bus in morgan county.

But thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, fewer than half that number will take them starting next month.

Those who do will notice some enhanced safety measures.

Transportation director - hank summerford - gave us a tour.

He said it starts with leaving the seat directly behind the driver empty.

:31-:48 "nobody's gonna sit right there.

That's where our hand santization station's gonna be.

The kids will come, and when they get on the bus, they'll just get on the bus like this, and come up, and they'll walk right here, take this and go to their seat."

Summerford and his crew are installing these sanitizing stations on all 122 buses in the fleet.

There will be as much social distancing on the buses as they can manage.

Family members can sit together.

Everyone else separated as much as possible.

They'll be sitting on seats sanitized daily with an electro-static disinfectant spray.

In fact the school districts weekly schedule has deep cleaning built-in.

2:28-2:49 "we've got our plan out there right now that we're going to be going to school on mondays and tuesdays.

Wednesdays will be a clean day for the buses, for my drivers.

They will be deep cleaning their bus on wednesdays.

And thursdays and fridays we'll be going to school.

And then they'll be deep cleaning their buses again on saturdays.

Students will have assigned seats.

That, summerford says, is not open for discussion or negotiation.

And there's a good reason for that.

If a student gets sick, identifying where they sit becomes vitally important.

4:57-5:21 "we're going to have to have a way to tell who's been sitting around that person to contact trace to see who's been in contact with that person, who's been exposed to that person.

And so that's the only way we can do that is to have assigned seats.

So when they get an assigned seat at the beginning of the year, that's going to be their assigned seat for the duration of the year."

Bus drivers are not responsible for checking every child's temperature or assessing their overall health.

They're job, as always, summerford says, is making sure the kids get on and off the bus safely.

Student's temperatures will be checked before they enter the school building.

But summerford reminds mom and dad - if a child gets to school with a temperature, it's too late.

It's up to those parents to see that doesn't happen.

8:26-9:12 "parents are our first line of defense.

They're our first line of defense.

They have to check their temperature and everything before they leave home.

And if a parent sees that a child has a temperature before they leave home, they can't bring them to school.

They can't put them on a bus.

They can't put them in a car and bring them.

They have to check that and make sure that - you know - they check that first.

Like i said, they're the first line of defense.

And without their help, we're fighting a loosing battle because once they get to school, then, if they have a high temperature, one they get there we check them.

And then we have to put them somewhere til the parent comes and gets them.

So all of that's going to have to be decontaminated.

Somebody that's been staying with them's going to have to be quarantined.

So, our parents are the ones that are going to have to help us with this."

Mask will be required for all students on the bus and for the driver.

Dan shaffer - waay 31 news.