58°F
weather icon Mostly Clear

CCSD changes course on plans to send custodial workers back to work

Updated April 3, 2020 - 5:07 pm

The Clark County School District has reversed course on a decision to send its maintenance and custodial employees back to work at school sites after workers expressed concerns that they’ll be exposed to the novel coronavirus without adequate protective equipment and cleaning supplies.

In a memo sent Friday, the district said that all maintenance, grounds and custodial staff receiving pay during school closures will work from home beginning April 6 after the district received “clarifying information” from Gov. Steve Sisolak’s office regarding essential operations.

On Tuesday, Heidrun Zupancic, the district’s director of maintenance, sent a memo to operations managers stating that employees who can’t perform their regularly assigned duties from home would go back to on-site work, cleaning schools during the closure, as well as ensuring that school sinks are operational and stocked with soap. Staff not working on those items will receive other work orders.

Zupancic added that anyone not comfortable reporting to work may use their accrued leave.

“Employees who do not have leave balances or choose not to use them will be granted leave without pay,” the memo said.

Cleaning and social distancing measures

Zupancic’s memo outlined cleaning and social distancing measures that the district was going to institute in order to mitigate exposure to coronavirus. Among them are measures calling for workers’ start times to be staggered by 15 minutes and for equipment to be cleaned between uses.

Some essential support staff have been on-site since schools closed, including food service workers. One of those workers, a man who last worked at Desert Pines High School in Las Vegas on March 23, died after contracting COVID-19, the district announced Thursday. No information has been released on whether investigators with the Southern Nevada Health District have determined how the man became infected.

The death heightened concerns among other trade, maintenance and custodial employees, who have been working from home for the last two weeks.

Some workers said they were uncomfortable returning to work, even before the death of the food service worker was announced.

Operations manager Michael Hammond said earlier this week that calling employees back to work during what’s projected to be a peak time for the virus not only would put workers at risk, but also risk contaminating schools.

“This is how it gets passed around,” Hammond said.

Hammond added that he personally feels at risk as a 70-year-old cancer survivor who also cares for someone with a medical condition. If workers must be at school sites, they need protective equipment, he said, adding that the district also needs to clean schools with disinfection “fog machines” like those used in casinos.

District representatives said previously that CCSD had informed bargaining units of the plans and that the district was following the instructions outlined in Sisolak’s emergency declarations.

A March 20 directive from the governor that defined essential employees includes plumbers and electricians “who provide services necessary to maintain the safety, sanitation and essential operations of residences or businesses.”

But the directive does not explicitly include schools, which are closed through at least April 30, said Kat Pasquarelli, who has a family member who is a school district employee.

‘If it was an emergency, we’d understand’

“If it was an emergency, we’d understand,” she said earlier this week. “But just going back to work to do back orders doesn’t make any sense.”

A second directive related to school employees says all staff will continue to provide “vital services and distance education to Nevada’s students” under the direction of their superintendents. They “may perform duties while away from school buildings,” including from their homes, the directive states.

Nevada Health Response, the unit overseeing the state’s coronavirus response, did not provide further clarification.

Contact Aleksandra Appleton at 702-383-0218 or aappleton@reviewjournal.com. Follow @aleksappleton on Twitter.

Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook.
THE LATEST