FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)
Voices E3 Liz Williams
File Name: Voices E3 Liz Williams.mp3
File Length: 00:08:18
SPEAKERS
JK - Jeff Krakoff
Int - Introduction
LW - Liz Williams
00:00:02:24 - 00:00:07:24
Introduction: Welcome to Voices, a Podcast brought to you by the Seneca Valley School District.
00:00:10:15 - 00:00:43:00
Jeff Krakoff: Hi, I'm Jeff Krakoff. I'm here today with Liz Williams who is the nursing administrator at Seneca Valley School District. Welcome. And so you're leading the health efforts during pretty critical time, right? Dealing with COVID-19. A little background before your current role, you were also a nurse at Ryan Gloyer Middle School, and congratulations I know you recently won a prestigious award, the Highmark Foundation's sixth annual Advancing Excellence in School Nursing Award.
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Jeff Krakoff: So kudos to you for that. But let's just start with you know there's a lot happening everybody knows it.
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Jeff Krakoff: I imagine you work closely with the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and other public health agencies. What have you been doing to get ready for the school year working with state and federal agencies?
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Liz Williams: So we've been doing a lot of research. I've been doing a lot of research through the CDC, Department of Health, what their guidelines are for school ,what the expectations are to keep students safe, to keep them healthy. And then what to do if we do have a situation where somebody is not healthy at school and how do we handle that and keep other students safe as well.
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Jeff Krakoff: So I'm sure parents, staff, have a lot of questions probably first is
00:01:37:15 - 00:01:46:08
Jeff Krakoff: monitoring symptoms, how to figure out do I stay at home, do I come to school? What what's happening along those lines.
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Liz Williams: Right. So our plan is actually to ask parents to monitor their children at home before they even come to school. I know that for sports we've been doing temperature checks when they arrive on the field, but in those situations the parent has brought them to the field. And when school starts they're going to be coming on school buses. And so we want to make sure they're healthy before they even get on the bus in the morning. And that's why we're really asking parents to cooperate with us, to coordinate efforts to make sure their kids are healthy.
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Liz Williams: We're going to review signs and symptoms of COVID-19, what to look for when they're at home, how to take their temperature. If parents have difficulty getting a hold of a thermometer or purchasing one we're going to ask them to contact the school district and see if we can help them in those efforts. When to say home and when to call the doctor and if they are sick when they can come back to school.
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Jeff Krakoff: Right. So you know a common topic in the news today are mitigation efforts whether you're a restaurant, you're a business, you're a school. What's happening at Seneca Valley to help decrease the chances of somebody within the school becoming ill?
00:02:55:13 - 00:03:27:19
Liz Williams: Well, first of all, we're going to ask parents not to send their kids to school when they're sick. We're going to ask staff to stay home if they're not feeling well. Lots of handwashing. We're going to provide videos on handwashing for the kids to watch. We're going to ask parents to review that with their students at home before school starts. We're gonna have specific times built into the schedule, mostly at the elementary level, where they need a little bit more assistance. Time schedules in the day to do handwashing, times to use hand sanitizer versus handwashing which is appropriate,
00:03:27:23 - 00:03:39:12
Liz Williams: but we're also going to talk about social distancing and wearing their mask, proper diet and exercise, just ways to keep yourself healthy in general, not just during the time of COVID-19.
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Jeff Krakoff: Right. Right. So these are things people should do well past the COVID pandemic, just from a general health standpoint
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Liz Williams: And with handwashing hopefully these are habits that will continue on.
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Jeff Krakoff: Yeah. So what happens if again I'm a student, I'm a parent, I'm part of the staff, I'm not feeling well I'm not sure exactly. What are the steps to take if I'm just feeling a little bit off?
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Liz Williams: We would ask for children and staff that they would stay home if they're not feeling well. Contact their primary care provider and get some guidance from them.
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Liz Williams: We certainly have some students with existing health conditions that might cause them to have a cough or might cause them to have trouble breathing, it sometimes may be asthma. So we would ask that they maybe keep them home for a little bit in the morning. Monitor that cough. Is it their normal situation? Do they have allergies? Maybe they just need to take their allergy medication and feel better and at that point they certainly could bring them to school, but we would ask that coordination to be between the parent and the school to determine what's best and where the child can come to school.
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Jeff Krakoff: OK. Makes sense. So we've been talking a lot about what to do before somebody enters a building. What happens if if there's a student or staff member that isn't feeling well during the day once they're in a building. What are the protocols?
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Liz Williams: So we're going to ask teachers to alert the nurse that they're sending somebody to the nurse's office so we can be prepared to bring that child in. That way if there's a situation that they just have an injury or something different we know how to handle it when they get there. So hopefully there'll be some advance notice prior to them coming up. We will put them in an area that is specified for students that are ill. We're doing our best to find ways in each nurse's office to separate ill children from well children because we still have students that are coming in for medication, for management of their chronic health conditions, that aren't sick.
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Liz Williams: So really separating them. But basically if they have a fever or we have we think they have symptoms that could potentially be the coronavirus we're gonna call the parents and ask them to come pick up their child and then consult their physician on what the next step would be.
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Jeff Krakoff: OK. So in the occurrence that a student is found that they do have COVID and they've got or maybe they need to self-quarantine because they're not sure they've been exposed to somebody. What are some of the protocols working with guidance staff to help keep educating children and students when they're not in one of the buildings?
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Liz Williams: Right. So we're already working on many different ways to educate students during COVID-19. Some some schools are going back a few days a week, some every day, some are doing completely remote learning. So whatever phase we're in we'll determine then what is the best way to maintain that continuity of education for each individual student. So the guidance counselor will work with the nurse. How long do we think they might be out? Are they in quarantine just for 14 days? Are they ill and we need to wait until they recover?
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Liz Williams: If they just have mild symptoms can they continue to do their regular schoolwork at home with guidance and they're able to complete all that versus someone who's very ill for a number of days. And how do we get them caught up again? So we'll work with the parent, the guidance counselor, the teachers to coordinate those efforts so that students aren't falling behind just because they were ill or just because they were healthy but had to quarantine.
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Jeff Krakoff: OK. Is there any additional advice that you'd like to give parents or any member of the Seneca Valley community out there about about health as we go through this time?
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Liz Williams: I think I would just ask for transparency. I think a lot of people want to keep their health conditions private and certainly don't want people to know. I would hope they know that information they give us is completely confidential. That transparency is the best way to protect everyone.
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Liz Williams: So if they know that their child was exposed, work with us to find the best plan for that child and if their child sick just really keep them home until they're well enough to come to school.
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Jeff Krakoff: Great advice, Liz. Thanks again for your time today. Good luck as we get ready to start the new school year.
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Liz Williams: Yes. Thank you very much.
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Jeff Krakoff: Take care.