Despite District Claims, Fairview Has Not Recevied BVSD Supplies to Combat Coronavirus

Administrators+purchased+cleaning+supplies+with+building+money%2C+they+arrived+on+March+6th.

Henry Larson

Administrators purchased cleaning supplies with building money, they arrived on March 6th.

Henry Larson and Sara George

With the first cases of coronavirus presumptively positive in Colorado, BVSD officials have been putting together a pandemic plan, meant to curb the impacts of an infectious disease like COVID-19.

On March 6th, BVSD Manager of Communications Carolyn Nohe said that she “was not aware of any shortages in our schools of cleaning supplies.”

However, an email sent by Molly McLoughlin, the Director of Facilities for BVSD, seems to contradict this statement.

“We’re still working with suppliers to get more [cleaning supplies]. We’re deploying what we have but it might not be 1:1 for every space we have. Please place them in classrooms first, some classrooms may have to share until they’re able to get more in,” read the email sent Friday morning.

“Like everyone, we’re having difficulty getting cleaning supplies in,” it continued.

In fact, according to Principal Don Stensrud, Fairview High School has yet to receive any supplies from the district.

“We’re still waiting for the hand sanitizers […] but we were supposed to have small ones for every classroom. Every teacher was supposed to have one, teachers were supposed to have wipes,” said Stensrud.

Instead of district supplied materials, Fairview has resorted to purchasing their own cleaning supplies. Using building funds, administrators purchased paper towels, spray bottles and gloves for teachers.

“We’ve [reduced] vacuuming to every other night so we can wipe down common surfaces, but I don’t have wipes and I don’t have hand sanitizer,” said Stensrud.

The district said that supplies had started to arrive at their warehouse, but have yet to be delivered to schools.

“[Cleaning] wipes arrived in the warehouse yesterday and are being deployed to your school on your regular warehouse delivery schedules starting today,” read McLoughlin’s email.

McLoughlin did not respond for a request to comment.

In the meantime, Fairview faculty are now making dodue. This morning, Fairview teachers were instructed to pick up their paper towels and spray bottles, and have now begun to clean common surfaces.

As for the district supplies, Stensrud said they won’t expect them until early next week.“Best case scenario, we get [the supplies] on Tuesday,” he said.