DENVER (KDVR) – The first day of school is just around the corner so we spoke with Denver Public Schools on how they plan to keep classrooms clean this upcoming year.
Over the summer, the operations and facilities team took a deep dive into all the classrooms.
“We have to be really on our toes at the operations and facilities team. Just anticipate what’s going to come and things are changing daily so we are ready for anything and I think that’s the way we will stay throughout the course,” said Joe Shoemaker Facility Manager Connor Smith.
Most of the cleaning and disinfecting will be done in the evening before staff and kids come back to school the next day, but there will be three restroom checks and cleanings throughout the day.
There is a checklist on doors, which includes surfaces and objects, a description of each task, tools and chemicals used, and the time and initials of when it was done.
“We use Morning Mist which is our disinfectant which we used last year during covid and our main product we were using to disinfect all our classrooms with,” said Smith.
DPS also has an infectious disease outbreak program which is used to determine what level of response to use for each case.
“We do have some schools where they share classrooms so we would go in right away disinfect that classroom so it’s ready for the next round of kids who come in the afternoon or if there is an evening program that uses the school,” said Rich Archuletta, Director of Facility Operations of DPS.
Another determining factor will be the absentee rate.
“You know we get up to 10% absenteeism then we usually do the entire school and bring in additional help. Again, depending on the situation,” said Archuletta.