AKRON, Ohio — As Catholic schools prepare to return to the classroom this week, 3News is looking into how St. Vincent St. Mary High School will keep students safe during transition times when they’re not in class.
The hallways at St. Vincent St. Mary will have signs hanging high above heads and the floors will have direction signs too for crowd control. SVSM Principal Kimberlee Gorr says they also had to adjust the schedule to avoid crowded hallways.
“My colleagues and I took a couple of opportunities to pretend to be students and time how long it would take from one class to get to another. We added a minute to that transition time,” syas Gorr.
Right now faculty and staff are putting the finishing touches on pandemic school return policies. Tom McKrill, SVSM Dean of Students say that includes plans for times where it could be challenging to disperse a large group.
“There may be a time during this pandemic when we’re socially distanced that there could be a fire or there could be an emergency where we have to evacuate,” says McKrill.
So what do leaders do when they need to leave the classroom or arena in a hurry?
“It’s basically just going to be that we are going to practice fire drills at different times without the alarms because it won’t be the full school, but then when we do have the full alarm people will know exactly what to do and where to go,” says McKrill.
Rising SVSM sophomore Andrew Christie says he knows this year will be different, but he’s ready to return.
“It’ll be interesting to see the set up, but I think we’ve taken the necessary precautions,” says Christie.
Andrew Christie’s mom, Kelly Christie says she trusts and supports the back to school and safety plans.
“I’m hopeful that everything goes smoothly and they can stay in school and continue to learn with their friends and their teachers,” says Christie.