Garland ISD is stepping up its sanitizing efforts. NBC 5 Education Reporter Wayne Carter tells us how districts are asking parents to help them fight back.
From Fort Worth to Garland, schools are under the gun with students and teachers not showing up for class. They're out sick thanks to germs spreading through the building.
"The classrooms have kinda been empty. People have been missing some of my friends," said Ezra Molina, a student at Dorsey Elementary School in Garland ISD.
It’s dire in elementary schools where desks are super close together because kids work and sit in groups all day, sharing computers, and scissors and paste.
"We always clean our desk at the end of the day and sanitize and wash things and when we sneeze we sneeze in our elbows," said Maybrie Gigon, another student.
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In Garland ISD, they’re using these high-tech sanitizing guns, the district relied on them heavily during covid, to coat surfaces and attack germs when illnesses start to take hold on a campus.
"Right now we’re doing it every three days or three times a week as much as we possibly can, probably going to end up doing it on an everyday basis," said Renee Kotsopoulous, Health Services Director, Garland ISD.
February is always a bad month for flu, and this year is proving no different, but school leaders tell us that if anything covid has made it easier to fight the flu. Kids know and remember those days and like all of us --- don’t want to see them return.
Carter In The Classroom
Focusing on unique things school districts are doing to help children succeed.
"We try really, really hard to keep it clean," said Amen Gosay, a student.
Awareness and teamwork are part of the plan but say the big one is for parents not to send kids to school sick, no matter how much time they’ve missed, it’s the only way to win the war, fighting the flu.
