I’d like to make clear that this post is not a criticism: It’s more a story about the complications and cross-currents in our lives that arise from the COVID-19 virus.
A Newton parent related the following story. Concerned about the virus, she’s been diligent in training her elementary school child to wash his hands frequently, but especially before eating. She queried him as to whether they had been doing this in school before lunch. “No,” was the answer.
So she called the school nurse, who informed her that the staff had been advised to make sure their students were washing their hands before lunch (per this summary.) But the nurse said she would send out another reminder to the teachers.
The son continued to report that they had not washed their hands before lunch. A couple days later, the parent sent an email to the teacher to relay the child’s report and, politely, to ask for more attention to this matter. The teacher’s response: “We’ll try to fit it into the day.”
What’s happening here, I believe, is not an uncaring teacher. Rather, teachers have so many requirements that they have to accomplish during the day that it is, indeed, difficult to fit in another one. When you’re in that situation, it really is hard to reallocate time and shift priorities. Everything is additive, and nothing is subtracted away from your responsibilities.
I’ve personally faced similar situations when I’ve run organizations: Under novel challenging conditions, well meaning, thoughtful, and intelligent staff found themselves with simply too much to do to get through the day. Serious safety and quality issued started to arise. It is at such times that the leaders of the organization–whether at the building level or the system level–need to help the front-line staff come up with strategies and give permissions that balance the older set of priorities with a newer set. If this realignment does not happen, the more drastic solution–closing the schools–will seem to be the right one. That would be a shame, as it is likely possible to manage through this disease process and maintain educational progress for the kids.
I just signed a Care-2 petition demanding that testing and treatment be free. Companies should not profit from people’s misfortune. Also, the only way to contain it.
I understand that our school Franklin now has aides dispensing hand sanitizer to those entering the cafeteria. This seems like a straightforward way to impose uniformity. I wish kids could all be washing their hands correctly and completely, but in an elementary school that probably just wishful thinking.
I completely agree with you, Paul. We need to deliberately and rationally adjust our social mechanisms to deal with circumstances essentially none of us have faced. That it might be hard isn’t especially relevant. We also need to share best practices efficiently.
Just as our immune systems may have limited immunity to this novel virus, our society has very limited experience with how to cope with the disease’s impacts.
In a City where every political fight seems to be waged with scorched Earth intensity, I hope we can put distrust and divides aside and face whatever comes at us. Together.
We should also acknowledge that as this threat stretches on, the mental toll of fear and uncertainty is draining and damaging. Residents, parents, kids. Even our leaders. Pulling together means empathy and help for our neighbors, whatever they are facing.
Exactly, @Mike: “Pulling together means empathy and help for our neighbors, whatever they are facing.”
It’s easy to fall into defensive or aggressive modes when you’re scared for yourself or your family. We can rise above those tendencies by acknowledging our feelings of vulnerability and by sharing knowledge and offering caring help for one another.
A parent I know who is immunocompromised has to worry about this all the time. We’re paying attention to it now because of COVID-19, but it’s a year-round problem especially during cold & flu season. Kids need to be taught how to wash their hands correctly and then be given enough time to do that after going to the bathroom as well as before eating lunch. This is a serious public health issue.
Introducing new habits to sit with or replace old habits is non-trivial. Old habits are part of our ‘fast thinking’ arsenal (thanks to Twersky and Kahneman for the terms), while new habits have to be created and consolidated among our ‘slow thinking’ priorities.
The mom in this story did a slow thinking intervention to create fast thinking habits. She found a time, place, and context and committed to a deliberate intervention to break old routines–eg rush to pick up food off the counter or table–and establish a new one–eg on the way to grab food pass by the sink. With sufficient sets and reps, the deliberate slow thinking becomes fast thinking habit and routine.
Why the problem for the teacher? Maybe time, though I’m not so sure. Perhaps less investment in finding a committed time and place (rather than by chance) to introduce the new behavior.
Interesting element about the cafeteria workers coming up with a solution. Folks who prepare food en masse have to have habits about turning slow thinking ideas into fast thinking habits–new recipes are conceived in a slow deliberative fashion, but they have to be delivered as part of a regular menu rotation in a fast thinking efficient approach. Food safety, workplace hygiene, cleanliness–those are all created and refined through slow thinking invention that have to be incorporated as fast thinking habits and routines.
Thanks, @Steve. FYI, Steven Spear, Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and at the Engineering Systems Division at MIT, is an expert on how select organizations manage complex development, design, and delivery efforts to create high rates of internally generated, broad-based improvement and innovation.
It is hard to send 75 kids to the bathroom at the same time to wash their hands. It is a logistical nightmare. However, having hand sanitizer before entering the cafeteria sounds like a reasonable idea all 180 days! We wash our hands in our house before a meal.
The other issue is who supplies the hand sanitizer? I routinely ask my kids teachers what supplies they are running low on (kleenex, sanitizer, wipes, etc). My older one is in high school, and I amazon the delivery right to the specific teacher. Teachers should not need to supply their own wipes and Kleenex, especially now. I urge each of our parents to email the teachers and ask what they need. AND if you don’t have kids in the school, reach out to the senior center or a local school and ask what you can donate. It takes a community to contain the germs.
Steve Spear, good thoughts and good theory, but in this case I think it was the school nurse and principal who instituted the lunch sanitizer policy.
NewtonMom, I agree. It is a quaint and neighborly system where parents provide individual teachers with tissues and cleaning supplies (don’t know about hand sanitizer). However, it is grossly inefficient and risks gaps in the system. With some of these supplies sold out everywhere, only institutions can get them. This should be an NPS or Public Health responsibility.
NewtonMom – Thank you! Having 75 children wash their hands properly (20 seconds/child) would take about 20 minutes. Lunch is 30 minutes long so the handwashing would have to begin before the lunch period – during math/literacy instructional time.
More importantly, being in a school is a “hands on” experience all day long for kids. Does it make sense to have children wash hands just at lunch? Unfortunately what works for groups of adults doesn’t apply to kids.
Logistically, hand sanitizers in each room make more sense. In my experience, teachers/staff /parents typically buy hand sanitizer for their space, and now that the store shelves have been cleared of supplies, classrooms may be running low. This is an area where parents and residents could help out by dropping a bottle off in the school office or in a classroom.
Mike,
For years parents have been supplying all sorts of things that NPS should be purchasing. Since reality is if teacher’s don’t have it, they buy it from their paycheck.
I think it was SWINE FLU 10 years ago, and I sent boat loads of Purrell to the first grade teacher. While the system in quaint (and annoying), I would rather send in Kleenex, Wipes, Paper towels, copy paper, classroom pencils, so that the teacher doesn’t have to purchase them.
It makes me think about less wealthy communities.
Jane,
I worked in a school *years back* during a local outbreak of something. My job every morning was to check off each student as they entered the school, washed their hands with soap, and again before they went home. Another teacher covered my classroom, as I spent 45 minutes each morning and afternoon being the guard at the sinks. I had a stop watch. I made sure it wasn’t cold water. And then each teacher had to monitor their own classroom for before and after lunch. We spent hours of the day washing hands, but the outbreak of whatever stopped with that policy.
It was Pre-K and K students, so they lost learning time, but we stopped the spread of whatever.
In today’s classrooms, there are 75 kids per grade, and in elementary school (K-5) that is 450 students. To have an adult monitor hand washing at the start of the day, the start of lunch, the end of lunch and the end of the day is too much learning time sacrificed. We live in a community though that has access to Purell. But with that kind of vigilance, the germs don’t spread. I don’t get to make the decision for the schools. Curious to know what happens.
Just yesterday I taught a student who was at the end of a cold. In one 45 minute period, she needed to use a Kleenex four times and Purell her hands after each use.
This problem is much harder than having clean hands before eating lunch and 100 times harder than controlling or changing the habits of adults.
It’s also a question of architecture – especially as we renovate and replace our schools.
When I worked in Japan my office building had a 2-part bathroom: a “lounge” you entered through, and then a door into the toilet room with stalls. The lounge had – I think – about 2x the number of sinks as there were toilets and a small cubby/locker (think 10×15 cm, and a bit deeper than a hairbrush) for each employee.
Before lunch everyone washed their hands, and after lunch everyone washed their hands and brushed their teeth (with the toothbrush & toothpaste from their locker)
If we as a town decide that handwashing and/or toothbrushing is a priority worth paying for, it should be simple enough to include several dozen feet of trough sinks (and maybe even toothbrush cubbies!) in an extra wide hallway leading up to the cafetoriums.
I say that it has to be a priority worth paying for, because I think this is not on the MSBA’s standard architecture/ function list so Newton would have to cover 100% of the associated cost.
(As always, this is a personal statement)
NewtonMom, the reality now is that institutions can still get hand sanitizer and other supplies, it is just consumers that can’t. The system of parents (or teachers) buying their own health hygiene system is inefficient by its nature, and non-functional now.
If less affluent communities have trouble, the state should step in.
This is far bigger than the school system or a single community.
I love the generosity exhibited by @NewtonMom and of the other parents, as described by @JaneFrantz! But, really, @Mike’s point is right on target. If we have a public health imperative–as we do right now–it is the responsibility of the City to provide such equipment and supplies as are consistent with its policies and requests of the teachers and other staff.
Paul,
I haven’t seen that kind of action by the City. I believe it was Burr that had water fountains with lead in it. I would love the City to step up, but in reality, after 13 years of a parent with a child in NPS, it is not going to happen. NPS doesn’t have the funds, and so far I haven’t seen the city step up and communicate with parents that they are taking it over.
@NewtonMom, perhaps the current situation would give the School Committee the impetus to persuade the Mayor that this would be money well spent.
“NPS doesn’t have the funds, and so far I haven’t seen the city step up and communicate with parents that they are taking it over.”
This is a fundamentally different situation than we’ve faced in this country, possibly since polio. The city steps up or else the risk of inconveniences, health crises, and potential tragedies mounts significantly.
This isn’t a schools issue, this is a public health issue. We need to treat it like a public health issue. Our entire community is potentially affected. We don’t budget for schools assuming they might have to deal with a potential epidemic in the next fiscal year. Any required health measures should be paid for off budget so that the job gets done and gets done right.
This is “all hands on deck” or else we’re going to have an even bigger mess to deal with. Aggressive and affirmative action now means less “coulda woulda shoulda” regrets later.
I feel strongly that the lead pipe issue should also have been treated as a public health issue, even if we had needed to pull from the rainy day fund. Some water fountains in our schools and parks still haven’t been fixed, and it’s an embarrassment.
It is more effective, efficient, and cheaper for all appropriate cleaning, sanitizing, and hygiene supplies to be purchased centrally. That’s true now and and it was true back when we were “only” dealing with the standard flu, colds, and vomit. Teachers, principals, and parents should be allowed to attend to their mountain of other responsibilities, staying as focused as possible on giving our kids the excellent education and support they need.
(We haven’t even discussed how we keep educating our kids, and easing their fears, if schools have to close….)
City Leaders, the time is now to step up and deal with this issue. We are counting on you.
“support they need” -> “supporting their needs”
Right, @Mike. Hoping School Committee members are reading this. Hope NTA takes this on as an issue, too.
Agreed!
The Harvard Graduate School of Education says making time for handwashing is important and feasible:
* Schools can take immediate action — with simple, low-tech, effective interventions — to reduce risk of infections.
* Schools can encourage and enable regular handwashing, which is a proven way to prevent disease.
* Schools can ensure abundant supply of hand soap, paper towels, and hot water in all restrooms.
* Schools can empower students by reinforcing the importance of handwashing for long-term health.
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/20/03/prepare-coronavirus-simple-measures-are-often-most-effective
I hate to say it, but Harvard is a really bad source for information on this topic. Any elementary school teacher can give you the lowdown on children and hygiene issues. As the saying goes, the nose knows.
Perhaps replacing the word “schools” at the beginning of each sentence with “parent(s)/guardian(s)” is a good place to start. Daily hygiene habits are learned best when they’re reinforced 365/24/7.
Contributions of hand soap and sanitizer to your child’s school are helpful. Keeping kids home when they are sick is essential.
Today’s Superintendent update states the schools are stocked with large amounts of hand sanitizer, all soap dispensers will be double checked, and extra cleaning will be done on “high touch points”.
This is how things need to be done. I hope it is sustainable. On the positive side, this extra level of hygiene will likely drove down all other contangions as well.