Seattle Public Schools is preparing to welcome thousands of students back to its campuses next week even as the delta variant drives some of the highest rates of spread yet during the pandemic and Washington has joined states across the country in restoring its indoor masking requirements. With help from federal guidelines and the experiences and data from schools around the world, officials say they can provide a safe environment for kids when the new school year begins next week — even as access to a COVID-19 vaccine could still be weeks or months away. Some parents ready to sent their children back for in-person learning are calling on the district to address a hole in the plans — lunch time.

“We, the undersigned parents, caregivers, and community of Seattle Public School students, teachers, and families are writing to express our deep concern that fully outdoor lunches— a key, highly impactful COVID mitigation strategy– is not being supported across all SPS schools and is instead being decided at an individual school-by-school level,” reads a petition calling for the district to come up with a more equitable plan for handling lunch time unmasking.

“Having this important safety strategy handled at a school level risks creating significant health and education equity gaps as less-resourced schools may risk more frequent outbreaks and transmission due to a lack of space, resources (such as volunteer time and PTA funding), and advocacy tools to make fully outdoor lunches possible,” it reads.

After months of online-only instruction before resuming in-person instruction on a limited basis to end last school year, SPS plans to begin this fall with five full days of in-person instruction at all of its more than 100 schools. But the infection rate — and the worries — are climbing higher this fall than they were late last spring.

Principals have contacted SPS’s director of culinary services “requesting tents so they can provide outdoor dining,” a Seattle Public Schools spokesperson tells CHS, confirming administration at some of its 113 campuses are making preparations for outdoor lunches with 25 schools having requested tents as of Monday.

“Tents are a strategy to be able to physically distance students more – both indoors and out,” the spokesperson said, adding that “other schools are using covered outdoor areas or keeping kids really spread out indoors by adding lunch periods and using other spaces like gyms, common areas.”

Capitol Hill’s Stevens Elementary, for now, is going without tents and planning to utilize its existing cafeteria.

“I know there are a lot of emotions, thoughts, opinions about us and other schools planning to eat indoors in our cafeteria,” Principal RJ Sammons wrote in a message to the school’s parents and guardians this week. “Yes, we are planning to eat indoors but here are the safety components of our plan.”

“Our indoor space along with our lower enrollment allows us to eat safely indoors,” Sammons writes. “Setting up multiple tents or moving tables back and forth from our covered play court is not sustainable,” he said.

Here’s how Sammons describes the planned lunch time experience:

There will only be one grade level in the cafeteria at a time which will allow tables and students to spread out, three students will sit spread out more than 3ft apart at each table, all students will face the same way (students will not sit across from one another), students will be dismissed after they are done eating (either to recess or other outdoor designated area for their class and wait for pickup by their teacher).

The plan includes opening the building for ventilation along with help from updated MERV 13 filters which have also been installed throughout the school.

“We will reteach students how to eat while putting their masks up and down while they eat,” Sammons writes.

UPDATE 8/31/2021: Sammons announced a new plan to allow outside lunch for students in a covered area of the Stevens campus. “I will continue to work with our PTA and listen to our community as we are all working to keep our students safe!,” the principal wrote in a message to parents and guardians. “Thank you for all of your feedback and patience throughout this everchanging Back to School process.”

Washington, meanwhile, has instituted one of the strictest state employee and teacher vaccination requirements. The order require all state workers be vaccinated by mid-October including elementary, junior, and high school educators, staff, coaches, bus drivers, and even volunteers. Washington’s policy is considered particularly strict. Unlike some other states, employees cannot choose regular testing instead of vaccination.

The Stevens plan, meanwhile, aligns with CDC guidance (PDF) for lunch time school activities which include bringing “as much fresh air into the room as possible” when eating indoors.

Concerns about lunch time mixing the removal of masks and the high energy of children have been a focus of worry for school reopenings around the world and across the country but, so far, cafeterias have not been the center of documented spread of the virus.

Instead, experts say, the biggest risk for Seattle kids remains the same as for Seattle adults — our families and loved ones, and the unvaccinated.

Seattle Public Schools is also offering a limited “Virtual Option Pilot Program” for students and families who wish to continue receiving instruction online.

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