Health and safety in the classroom

The university in employing a number of strategies to slow the spread of COVID-19.  

• Instructors and students should self-assess their symptoms and should not come to campus if they are sick, have a temperature over 100.4 degrees F, or have other illness symptoms of the coronavirus as listed on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, website. Persons who develop any of these symptoms while on campus should leave and return to their local residence.  
• Students, faculty, staff and visitors must wear face coverings over their mouths and noses while on K-State campuses in all hallways, public spaces, classrooms and other common areas of campus buildings. Face coverings must also be properly worn when in offices or other work spaces or outdoor settings when 6-feet physical distancing cannot be maintained. 
• Classroom physical distancing and capacities have been identified. Floor plans indicating the appropriate furniture arrangement and occupancy of the room will be placed at the teaching podium in each classroom. Classroom seating available for use will be marked. Each classroom door will have signage indicating maximum capacity to achieve physical distancing. 
• For classrooms where there is more than one door, there will be a circulation plan and ingress/egress clearly marked. 
• Students are not permitted to eat or drink in classrooms while class is in session. 
• Instructors are encouraged to take attendance and use a seating chart. 

To promote the safest possible conditions on campus, we are continuing to provide enhanced cleaning throughout campus with increased attention to frequently touched surfaces. 

Instructors will end class five minutes early to ensure classrooms and teaching labs are disinfected between every class change with cleaning supplies provided in each space. The class leaving the room will be expected to spray workspaces that were used during the class.  The class entering the room will be asked to wipe down the spaces that have been sprayed.  Detailed information on cleaning protocols is available in the COVID-19 Cleaning and Disinfecting Guidance document.  

Technology equipment in classrooms should be cleaned using the COVID-19 Cleaning and Disinfecting Guidance document. 

The university is promoting frequent handwashing and touch-free hand sanitizer dispensers are being placed at entrances of all buildings. Additional information is available in the university's hand sanitizer guidance document.  

No. Records regarding a student's COVID-19 test result or status as a close contact are confidential under FERPA. In addition, do not share any other information for purposes of contact tracing, unless requested by a county or state public health official, or by Lafene Health Center contact tracers acting on behalf of Riley County Health Department.

Instructors should not ask students for any information about potential close contacts. That is, do not on your own try to determine or communicate about who has been exposed or who may be a "close contact." Under the Kansas contact tracing privacy law, those notifications must be provided only by and at the direction of public health officials.

Instructors may find it helpful to inform the class of how COVID-related absences will be handled and how privacy will be protected. The following example language may be used: "If someone in our class is diagnosed with or exposed to COVID-19, please know that I am not allowed to share that information as it is confidential under the law. In addition, Kansas law requires that all contact tracing be completed by public health officials. If public health officials determine that you were a close contact, contact tracers will contact you directly. Our classrooms are set up for social distancing and we are all required to wear our face coverings. Classrooms are also cleaned when occupancy changes. Those practices are designed to reduce risk."