A few weeks ago, Wilmington Friends School sent out an email. A student contracted Covid-19. The email, not providing much information to protect the student infected, was surprisingly bare and continued to hammer home that everyone must wear masks at all times. This brings to question, what is the school doing to protect us? The schedule is clear, Middle School comes on Monday and Tuesday, the school is cleaned on Wednesday, and on Thursday and Friday, the High School comes into the school. The days we are not in-person, we are online. When asking Mrs Rebecca Zug, Head of the Upper School, pointed toward the Reopening Guide and reminded us all, “Mask wearing is critical. … For cleaning, there is someone on the custodial staff who regularly wipes down doorknobs and cleans bathrooms several times during the day. And in the evening, this happens again, plus vacuuming and wiping surfaces in classrooms. Classrooms have wipes for cleaning desks between classes also. There’s a deep clean on Wednesdays.”

That raises the question, what does a deep clean mean? According to the department of public health, a deep clean constitutes a clean of all surfaces with soap and water then disinfecting the surfaces. For soft surfaces, such as the couches in the junior lounge, you should clean with soap and water or with “cleaner appropriate for use on these surfaces”. For when a person has been diagnosed with covid-19, the building should close off all places that the individual had been in for 24 hours before cleaning or disinfecting. It is also recommended that you vacuum the floors as well. With the school reporting that they are following the department of public health’s guidelines, these are the precautions that they should be following. With a higher understanding of the precautions and procedures taking place, students should feel safer and more comfortable within the school. Currently, when asking students about how safe they feel within the school with all of the restrictions in place, Olivia Delgado ‘21 reports, “I think it is disappointing because it is such a small school and the six degrees of separation are not as applicable. A student being infected with covid-19 and having been here is concerning because we are a small school and a spread has a higher likelihood of occurring.”

That comment makes sense because of the school’s lack of response to the individual’s positive diagnosis of covid-19. Although in an effort to be transparent, they sent out a school-wide email, they did not state the new measures of cleaning or the new precautions taking place. Even though they were very transparent at the beginning of the year, the seeming lack of response was concerning as it left more questions than answers. Hopefully, this article will help clear up any confusion that people may have.