Schools are scheduled to reopen on September 1. Tainan City Government has announced the Guidance for Safe Schools to safeguard the safety and health of students and school workers, and to thoroughly implement epidemic prevention and control works on campus. The Guidance for Safe Schools include the following measures:
1. Each school must assemble an epidemic prevention body and hold a meeting before school starts to formulate relevant contingency plans and measures.
2. To monitor the health status of all personnel on campus, schools must carry out real-name registration system, enforce frequent hand washing, and make sure both teachers and students take body temperature three times a day (before going to school, upon entering school, and before class starts in the afternoon).
3. Regularly inspect and verify the stock of epidemic-prevention supplies to ensure sufficient stock of bleach, alcohol, masks, forehead thermometers, and partitions. Schools with more than 450 people must be equipped with infrared thermal imaging cameras.
4. Strengthen campus environmental management, including maintaining good ventilation in activity areas, and increasing the daily cleaning frequency of classrooms, equipment, and transportation vehicles.
5. Implement campus access control. Parents and visitors are not allowed to enter the campus unless necessary, and if so, they must strictly follow the real-name registration system, wear masks, take body temperature, and visit only designated office space; school fields are only opened during non-class hours.
6. Except for drinking water and having meals, teachers and students must wear masks all the time. If music lessons cannot be carried out while wearing masks, schools should flexibly adjust the teaching content. During physical education classes, instructors must also avoid close contact activities and pay close attention to students’ health.
7. Strengthen food safety management measures during lunchtime, appoint designated meal-preparing staff, maintain a well-ventilated dining environment, and install partitions or keep social distance.
8. Once schools reopen, large-scale on-campus activities, such as school opening ceremony, should, in principle, move online. If schools still plan to hold physical events, they must adhere to epidemic prevention and control guidelines, and develop a contingency plan for epidemic prevention and control.
9. Stay vigilant at all times and be ready to deploy contingency plans, including issuing school safety notifications, initiating school continuation programs, and pro-actively cooperate with epidemic investigation personnel.
Once schools start, the above-mentioned epidemic prevention and control measures will be reviewed and revised on a rolling basis according to the latest epidemic developments announced by the CECC. We will continue to update all related measures in the designated webpage on the official website of the Bureau of Education (http://www.tn.edu.tw/2019-nCoV/Index.html).