Since Governor Kate Brown approved Lane County’s first reopening phase, schools are figuring out how soon they can put students back in the classroom. For some Lane Community College students, they may be back on campus beginning next week.
All of LCC’s spring term classes have been online except for specific Health Professions programs that were exempt from the Governor Brown’s Executive Order.
Now, some LCC career technical education courses will be able to resume limited in-person instruction beginning May 26.
Some programs eligible for limited in-person instruction include:
Construction
Welding and Fabrication
Manufacturing
Apprenticeship
Automotive
Diesel
Flight Tech/Aviation
Dental Hygiene
As of now, some automotive, diesel, welding and fabrication, and manufacturing courses will return beginning the week of May 26, and some dental hygiene classes will return the week of June 1.
During LCC’s Wednesday board meeting, ProvostPaul Jarrell said anyone on campus will be required to wear face coverings and abide by other precautions.
“We won’t have any more than an instructor with a pair of students at any given point in time, at a distance closer than six feet,” said Jarrell. “And we’ve built rolling plexiglass barriers that we can use to isolate when there’s instruction going so that there isn’t a lot of direct contact. Except maybe when hands have to be on. And at that point in time, it’s really just for a matter of minutes.”
The college has also created a matrix for each program that determines the amount of allowed close-contact time. According to Jarrell, the time varies from minutes to an hour depending on the program and what students are doing.
LCC will also clean between each group of students.
“And we’re trying to stagger things in a way where--for our facilities--[custodians] don’t have to run all over campus cleaning lots of different places,” said Jarrell. “We’re trying to just isolate things to one particular area and rotate students through in a way that makes sense so it’s easier to keep clean and contained.”
The college said they are following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state, and local public health guidelines when determining how to reopen the campus.
LCC holds the license for KLCC.
