The school day is subject to large-scale changes at Montoursville Area School District, said Christina Bason, superintendent, who outlined some of those changes in a virtual board meeting Tuesday.

“We are very concerned for you and I want to make that very clear, we will not forget about you and your families,” she said, referring to students.

Each student and staff member will be given a gaiter, mask and face shield at the beginning of the year.

“We are committed and are already in line to purchase masks for students and staff — all staff,” she said.

Students are required to wear one of those three on school buses, where they may be separated according to social distancing guidelines.

As students enter the school, equipment has been purchased to automatically check the student’s temperatures. If a student is flagged, then they will be taken to the nurse’s office for a more specific temperature check.

“We will run through regular hygiene routines with the students,” said Bason. “We will have at least 60 stations with hand sanitizers and hand sprays that are at least 80 percent alcohol so that students can clean their hands if they’re in their classroom.”

In classrooms, all desks will be outfitted with 21-inch high plexiglass shields, which will be issued to students as their personal property for school.

Those shields are planned to travel with students to each class and at the end of the day the shields may be taken to their first period class and cleaned that night by a misting machine to sanitize them.

“These parameters have changed every week for us. We did not intend on coming out with mandated masks everywhere,” said Bason. “We had a plan where you would be behind your plexiglass shield and when you were sitting at your desk you could take the mask off, but circumstances have changed”

For the high school and middle school, as students leave the classrooms, they may be asked to sanitize their desks. Teachers are scheduled to remain in their own rooms and students will filter out through designated paths to their next room, said Bason.

Students in the elementary school may be required to remain in their rooms for the normal teaching hours.

School administrators are contemplating the usefulness of lockers during the COVID-19 pandemic and may eliminate their use for the year, she said.

For lunches, additional tables and chairs will be added so that the students may eat without personal protective equipment.

“If there are times and areas where we cannot do that, the students will be eating within their classrooms.” said Bason. “I believe that is something that we need to work on a little bit more. We don’t have the extra staffing to be able to watch students while they’re eating and their teacher is taking lunch.”

In all, the teaching day may be decreased 20 minutes to allow for students to property clean their area, as well as egress and ingress to their classes.

The United States Center for Disease Control has not issued steps for the district to follow, should a student or staff member test positive for COVID-19.

Many of the changes are beyond the district’s authority, said Bason, who added that the priority for her is the students.

“Let’s not put our beliefs, our emotions, our politics onto our kids,” she said. “Let’s make sure that our kids know that they are capable of doing everything and let’s make sure that they know that this is just a space and time but they are capable of learning and being in control of something.”

In other business, the board:

• Approved an agreement with River Valley Regional YMCA for a school-aged child care program at Loyalsock Valley and Lyter Elementary schools for the 2020-21 school year.

• Approved an agreement with Justice Works Youth Care for the 2020-21 school year.

Members present: Dale Ulmer, Ron Snell, Susan Beery, Jennifer Marriott, Dottie Mathers, David Shimmel, Daniel Albert and William Ruffing; Scott Konkle was absent.

The next school board meeting is scheduled to occur virtually at 7 p.m., Aug. 11. A link is available via the Montoursville Area School District website.