Later, they would eat their individually packaged lunches in the Lakeland Elementary School cafeteria with two people sitting at each table.
Cardinal Place, a child care program for school-aged children, is practicing social distancing this summer. The program is operated by Willmar Community Education.
Many things are similar at Cardinal Place this summer.
There’s still plenty of playtime, some academics and arts and crafts. Outside there’s a well-equipped playground and a kickball field. One day this week, some of the older kids went outside on a scavenger hunt.
Last week, they were able to reserve time at the splash pad at Rice Park.
But so many things are very different during a pandemic. It could be a sign of how schools may need to operate when classes start in September.
Handwashing and hand sanitizer are big parts of the day. One staff member spends all day cleaning. Kids sanitize before and after they go on the playground equipment.
For the roughly 100 children in the program this summer, the program uses most of the first floor of Lakeland Elementary School, said director Melissa Akerson.
Each room has nine children and a staff member, and they move as a self-contained group throughout the day.
“We do our best to keep (kids) six feet apart,” she said, but it can be difficult.
“They’ve been taught their whole life to play nice,” Akerson said, but now they’re told to stay apart..
Sometimes, after being told to stay away from friends, a child will go into a corner and cry, she said. Sometimes, she admitted, the scene makes her go into her office and cry, too.
With distancing in place, the staff wasn’t able to offer hugs or a shoulder to cry on, so a teacher decided to hang a clear shower curtain in the corner of a classroom — a hug curtain.
“If they need a hug, kids can go behind the curtain,” Akerson said, and a grownup on the other side can hug them.
The separation between the groups can be difficult for the kids, too, said Makenna Brouwer, a leader of one of the groups.
“They don’t understand why their friend is in another room,” she said.
They use lots of supplies now, because there’s no sharing. “I do a lot of dishes,” Brouwer said, as she cleaned up after an art project.
Superintendent Jeff Holm said it’s hard to know if the district’s schools will follow the social distancing example set at Cardinal Place.
The state Department of Education is expected to tell schools how to plan for the fall using three scenarios — full in-person classes, distance-learning or a hybrid of the two.
In the hybrid model, schools are allowed to have up to 50 percent capacity, Holm said. Other students would be studying at home.
Even with schools half full, social distancing could be difficult, he said. It would begin with limits on the number of students on a school bus and go on throughout the day.
No matter what model is used, it could have far-reaching effects on families, working parents and area businesses, he said.
“My biggest concern is for the well-being of our 4,300 students and 600 to 700 employees,” he said.
For now, it’s hard to offer much certainty for students, parents or the larger community, he said.
“We’re going to try to make decisions based on what we think will keep kids safe but be conscious of the realities that many working families face,” he said. “It’s a challenging time for society in general.
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