Center directors, how are you preparing for opening and how will things be different?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did not think there was a requirement for staff to wear masks.

There is no requirement for staff to wear masks, at least for now. It is recommended, but not mandatory. I am a preschool teacher who works in a center in va that has remained open the whole time to serve children of essential workers. We are at a greatly reduced capacity, with many new safety measures being taken, temp checks, no parents in the building, LOTS of extra cleaning and sanitizing, etc but we are not required to mask up. So far only one staff member has felt the need to wear a mask. I have a mask just in case but so far have not worn it. The kids can’t wear masks, it’s just not practical, so it seems pointless for me to wear a mask when they are closer to each other than they are to me (and social distancing for little kids is IMPOSSIBLE for anyone wondering, we’ve tried to explain it and implement it but they are just too young to understand and remember to keep distance)
Staff that are working in the baby classrooms don’t wear masks either.

Are children allowed to play together?

Yes. We try to limit how many children are interacting with each other, for instance they can play in pairs with a game or set of toys rather than a big group of kids all gathered around a pile of toys/blocks/etc. as before. And we remind them to keep a distance, but they are so young it’s difficult for them to understand and they forget so it is a never ending battle to maintain any sort of social distancing, and I work with older preschoolers ages 4 & 5, I can’t imagine any measures are effective with the younger toddler ages.
The moral here is: if you send your child to daycare they will be in close contact with other kids despite the teachers best intentions.