By Mary O’KEEFE

When teachers and elementary students return to school, they are walking into facilities that reflect a year of preparation and the implementation of safety protocols by dedicated Glendale Unified School District staff.

After spring break 2020, Safer-At-Home Orders were put in place, which included schools closing for in-person learning, and virtual learning became the way students attended classes.

As district staff and families began adjusting to and working on plans of how this would look, there was a group of GUSD members from the Planning Dept., Custodial Operations, Maintenance and Nutrition departments that began not only looking at virtual solutions but also preparing for the eventual return to classrooms for in-person learning. The return  meant safety precautions would need to be implemented.

“We definitely had meetings right away,” said Hagop Kassabian, administrator of Planning, Development and Facilities for the district. “When the [pandemic began] we put together COVID coaches’ groups and started meeting once a week, then twice a week.”

They still meet twice a week.

Their first task was to create a core group that would assess what needed to be done. They began to talk about everything from getting PPE [personal protective equipment], like gloves and masks, to installing Plexiglass as separation shields for desks, and air purifiers. They heard concerns from teachers and staff members as well as from parents and students. Kassabian added one of the site visits he went on included a board representative of the Glendale Teachers Association where he showed what his staff had done. He also met with various PTA representatives.

“Making the decision of what to do was not tough,” he said. “Once the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and Los Angeles County came in with the health department [guidelines], what was tough was finding and purchasing items.”

This was made even more difficult because guidelines constantly changed.

“Everyone was saying [at the time] that this will ‘blow over’ and when the summer comes it will kill the [virus] and by the fall we will be in control of the virus,” Kassabian said.

Mixed messages from officials in the beginning of the pandemic made it difficult to plan too far ahead but Kassabian and the group coaches knew they had to properly prepare in order to get the items they needed.

One thing they knew they needed was hand-washing stations.

“When we first encountered the pandemic we [knew] we had a virus and what was the most important thing we would need to keep us safe? Hand-washing [stations],” he said. “We knew we would need hand-washing stations and distancing would be [important].”

So the group began reaching out to companies to try to find these items but in the pre-pandemic world there was not a lot of need for portable hand-washing stations. They went to kitchen supply companies and found portable steel units. The companies came to the district with samples and demonstrations. They decided on touchless stations that cost about $1,800. That price was high because at the beginning of the shutdown the demand was high and the supply low. As the pandemic continued more varieties of stations became available and Kassabian was quick to grab the newer versions that were better and cheaper.

They found there was a way to convert school drinking fountains to hand-washing stations at greatly reduced cost, about $700. The group was able to get the kits to make this switch and then converted the drinking fountains. This was a win-win situation because these drinking fountains use filtered water so personal water bottles could be refilled as well as hands being washed.

“All the hand-washing stations will stay,” Kassabian added. “They will function as drinking water and [hand-washing] stations and become long-term solutions.”

The district has installed over 450 additional hand-washing stations at their campuses.

They also reached out to signage companies. Each campus now has signs that cover every safety measure, including keeping six feet apart, wearing face coverings and washing hands.

In a recent visit to Balboa Elementary School, Congressman Adam Schiff called these improvements a “Herculean effort.”

Kassabian agreed.

“They are selfless human beings,” Kassabian said of his co-workers. “From day one they didn’t stop thinking and working to help out the students, colleagues and parents.”

He added that everyone pitched in when they were asked.

“All of us came together without anyone saying, ‘It’s not in my job description.’ It was all hands on deck,” he said. “We knew it was up to us to make sure the schools were ready.”

He said custodians loved the sites where they worked, and put in extra hours to make certain everything was ready when the schools repopulated.

“They care. They do take pride in their work and it means a lot to them,” Kassabian said. “It is amazing to be around people with that kind of character.”