In an attempt to combat COVID-19, Denver Public Schools plans to install disinfecting lights on all of its school buses for students attending in-person instruction.
According to the Denver Post, Denver Public Schools installed VioSafe disinfecting lights to 10 of its school buses on Tuesday, November 10. The VioSafe lights are designed to kill germs on surfaces.
The school district hopes to have disinfecting lights on every one of its 325 buses by January 2021. The installations would cost around $400,000 and will be financed by the CARES Act.
As of now, the school district has no plans of putting these disinfecting lights in other locations like classrooms.
"We're limited in what we can do on our buses, so the disinfecting lights were a sound investment," Denver Public Schools spokesperson Winna MacLaren told the Denver Post.
One 7-inch circular disinfecting light covers a 12-foot radius and kills 90 percent of germs, according to Tim Mickey of McCandless Bus Center. Mickey helped work out the light deal with the school district.
"Those LED lights work off 400 to 405 nanometer lighting scale," Mickey said. "What that means is it's 100 percent safe light that you can be exposed to 24/7."
Denver Public Schools would become the first school district in Colorado to install the lights on all of its buses. While they are mostly conducting remote learning, students up until second grade and those in specialized education programs are attending in-person classes.
Bus drivers and students are required to wear masks on the bus at all times and only one student is allowed per seat unless they are with a sibling.
The buses are sanitized between routes and at the end of the day.
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