Education Week - February 24, 2021 - 5

For example: About 70 percent of
schools surveyed by the School Nutrition Association in September 2020
said they planned to have students
eat lunch in their classrooms. There
are a few big benefits to this strategy,
experts said: Students and adults
alike are exposed to fewer unmasked
individuals at once, and it can allow
for students to remain in their small
classroom cohorts, if that's a strategy
the school is using.
But there are also potential drawbacks, said Lessler. " The cafeteria
tends to be this large, open area.
Often it's doubling as a gym. The
classrooms tend to be much smaller,
much more closed areas, " he said.
" By eating in classrooms, you could
be reducing the number of students
who are possibly exposed during that
eating time, but increasing the risk of
exposure by having higher density
and lesser quality ventilation. "
So which is the right strategy, classrooms or cafeteria? It depends on the
school context.
If the school is strictly following
a cohorting protocol, then it makes
sense to keep lunch in classrooms,
even if that means students are eating closer together, Lessler said. But
if the school isn't using cohorts-that
is, if students are mixing with different students throughout the day-
there may be fewer benefits to keeping them in classrooms for lunch.
" You might as well get them in the
most well-ventilated space where
people can be spaced out, " Lessler
said.
And the equation might change
again depending on ventilation-if
the classrooms have windows that
open, but the cafeteria doesn't, for
example. " If the airflow is turning
over faster in a smaller space, and it's
turning over more, then that would
probably be better " than a larger, unventilated space, said Gibson.
Several experts also suggested
making lunch periods shorter. " It
stinks, because kids don't get that
much downtime these days, but the
shorter the time their masks are off
the better, " said Nash.

Apsey, the Michigan principal, said
some of her teachers have done readalouds while kids eat.
It's " really, really, hard " to make
these kinds of changes, and to ask
students not to socialize during
lunch-but it's an important safety
precaution, said Goldman, the pediatric infectious disease expert at
UMKC.
4) Consider assigned seating

Keeping students in cohorts makes
for easier contract tracing in the

event of a case, said Goldman. But
if multiple groups of students are in
the cafeteria at once, schools should
consider assigned seating. That way,
schools can know which students
were within a six-foot radius of any
peer who tests positive for COVID19.
In a big cafeteria, it is possible that
students outside of that immediate
vicinity could have been exposed too,
said Gibson-the virus doesn't always
stop at six feet. But practically, working with a seating chart might be " the
best you can do, " she said.

5) No lunch line

Boxed or prepared lunches that
don't require cafeteria staff and kids
to line up buffet style are best, said
Goldman.
" You want to avoid those focal
points where everyone is close together and grouped together, where
you lose your social distancing, " said
Lessler. He added that surfaces, like
lunch tables, should be frequently
sanitized.
Again, similar precautions can
be taken for naptime, said Kumar:

Make sure students are spaced apart
as much as possible since they can't
wear masks, and don't share blankets
or stuffed animals.
As more school staff and teachers
are vaccinated, schools might consider putting those who have gotten
the shot first in line for lunch duty,
naptime, and other higher-risk periods, said Nash.
" If there's any flexibility, maybe
it's possible to swap out certain people who may be less vulnerable to
supervise these kinds of activities, "
he said.

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3) Limit talking

Kids have to take their masks off
to eat. But data suggest that maskwearing also relaxes a bit for the rest
of the lunch period: In a recent CDC
survey, only 36 percent of students
said that their peers always wore
masks in the cafeteria when not eating, compared to 65 percent who said
that students were always masked in
the classroom.
This is not best practice, experts
said: Students should have their
masks on at all times when they're
not eating. Staff should consider
double-masking, said Nash, a precaution that they should take anytime
they're around groups of unmasked
kids-including during naptime for
preschoolers and kindergartners.
And a bigger ask: Students should
eat lunch silently. " We know for example that talking, screaming, singing, laughing, are all things that spew
viral particles, " said Kumar. Instead,
she said, schools could show movies or engage kids in quiet activities.

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EDUCATION WEEK | February 24, 2021 | www.edweek.org | 5

Education Week - February 24, 2021

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