SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) - As Siouxland schools reopened this month amid the K-12 COVID-19 pandemic, students boarded buses in much the same way as they always have.
School officials say it is not practical to limit the number of students on each bus to about 15, which would meet the recommended social distancing practices.
As a result, the Sioux City Journal reports that many districts are requiring masks on buses. The list includes a number of smaller schools that are not mandating facial coverings while students are in the classrooms.
The Woodbury Central School District does not require masks in buildings, but does in buses. Superintendent Doug Glackin said he checked with the Iowa Department of Transportation, who gave the guidance that if there are 13 or fewer students on a basic 65-capacity bus, it is possible to adequately social distance and not have to wear masks.
Since all WC routes typically carry at least 14 students, those pupils are required to wear masks, Glackin said.
Sioux City School District operations and maintenance department director Brian Fahrendholz said it would require up to five times the number of bus trips to keep student numbers below the social distancing recommendations. That’s not achievable, Fahrendholz said, so district officials are taking steps to make a bus ride as healthfully safe as possible.
“No one could afford five times the trips,” he said. “We are doing out best to keep our buses as safe as possible, to achieve social distancing where possible.”
“We doubled in-town routes to accommodate this, as well as doubling our shuttles,” Alta-Aurelia School District Superintendent Bill Walters said.
On those buses, Walters said, only one student per seat will be allowed, and masks are highly recommended, although not required.
Classes for the fall semester began for a large number of Northwest Iowa schools on Aug. 24. In preparation for the new academic year, school officials have wrestled with how to halt the spread of the novel coronavirus and prevent classes from having to be moved online at some point.
A Journal analysis last week found that 10 districts, typically the largest in the region, are requiring masks at all times, in buildings and on buses. Many districts are requiring facial coverings in buildings when it’s not practical for students, teachers and staff to social distance, which health officials define as being at least six feet apart from another individual.
Compared to the rules in buildings, there are more districts in the tri-state area who are requiring masks on buses, because of the limited space to keep children apart.
In Sergeant Bluff-Luton, students are required to wear masks. Within buildings they are required for teachers and students in grades 6-12 when social distancing is not possible, and in the lower grades they are encouraged when distancing is not possible.
OABCIG Superintendent Matt Alexander said students, who come from Ida and Sac counties, are strongly encouraged to wear face coverings on the bus, and have assigned seats on each bus.
In order to make Storm Lake School District students understand the busing process, elementary assistant principal Mike Sullivan made a one-minute video that was posted to social media. A portion showed a worker spraying a disinfectant via hose into a bus, a task that is taken before and after students are transported on each route.
Sullivan said masks are required by drivers and also students, who can have only two pupils per seat, with a goal of having siblings seated together as much as possible. The Storm Lake pupils have also been told not to move seats on the bus.
At Maple Valley Anthon-Oto, masks are required on buses, students are assigned seats, which are ideally only one person per seat.
In the Sioux City district, Fahrendholz said the majority of the 65 buses in the district fleet have seating capacities of 77, achieved if three smaller students share one seat. Some students also take Sioux City Transit buses to school. In recent years most school district buses carry 50 to 55 students, with two students per seat. That was generally the practice in the district’s first week of the 2020-21 year, which started Tuesday.
“It is so much in infancy, right now,” Fahrendholz said.
The elementary school that buses the most students is Leeds, while North Middle School has the most riding at that grade level.
The Sioux City district buses are disinfected after each of the morning and afternoon runs. Fahrendholz said bus drivers wear masks, and haven’t seen students balking on wearing facial coverings as well.
He said parents may have done a good job of informing their children on the necessity of wearing masks, as one way to ensure schooling can go on during the pandemic that has seen more than 4,000 Woodbury County residents test positive.
“Parents support the wearing of masks on buses,” Fahrendholz said.
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