What One Minnesota School District is Doing to Prepare for School in the Fall

There is a Minnesota school district that spoke with KARE 11 about what they are doing to prepare for the possibility of students coming back to school this fall. The district KARE 11 spoke with is the Willmar Public School District.

When Jennifer Austin from KARE 11 was at the school, there were lots of stacks of face masks and hand sanitizer outside of Aaron Pilarski's office. Aaron is the building and grounds manager for the entire district.

Aaron told KARE 11 that the supplies they currently have are about a third of what they will have eventually. They have ordered "1,500 to 2,000 bottles of hand sanitizer, 35 sanitizer stands, and 10,000 face masks." They are also going to have face shields, Plexiglass, and signs reminding the kids to wash their hands and about social distancing.

Willmar Public Schools also lucked out because a couple of years ago they had purchased some disinfectant spray guns. Aaron says that the spray guns cut "down cleaning time by about 75 percent."

The state is expected to make an announcement on their decision for if schools will reopen, if they will continue with distanced learning, or if they'll do a little of both.

So why are Willmar Public Schools already ordering all of this stuff if they don't know what's going to happen yet? Aaron was asked this question and he said, "'You don’t have the luxury of waiting for specific guidelines to come out, because you’re going to be too late on the lead times of the supplies.'"