Sacramento City Unified gets N95s for staff, expects respirator masks for students soon
Sacramento City Unified is set to receive a shipment of close to 150,000 N95 respirator masks, which it will begin distributing to teachers and other staff, and expects to receive a shipment of different respirator masks for students next week.
The district in a news release said it will receive its shipment of 149,540 N95 masks, which were shipped by the state to the Sacramento County Office of Education, on Friday.
“Each school site will receive enough N95 masks to issue 20 of them to each staff member, along with contracted providers, volunteers, substitute staff, and also a backup supply for on-site needs,” Sacramento City Unified officials wrote.
The masks will be distributed to all campuses and charter schools in the district.
“N95 masks offer the best face covering protection (against COVID-19) that can be provided, blocking 95% of particles when worn properly,” Victoria Flores, a district student support and health services director, said in a statement. “We will be educating our staff on proper fitting and handling of these N95 masks to assure they are used effectively as possible.”
The district said a separate shipment of KF94 masks for students in the district is “expected to arrive as soon as next week.”
“KF94 masks differ from the N95 masks by using design elements of a cloth mask that contours toward the face with an adjustable band over the nose that filters 94% of particles,” the news release continued.
The shipments come as the Sacramento region, like the rest of California and most of the nation, sees record-setting COVID-19 transmission due to the highly contagious omicron variant. The California Department of Public Health also recently recommended that people upgrade from cloth masks to surgical masks or respirators in order to provide the best protection.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said this week the state was sending 9 million N95 masks to counties’ education offices. The timeline for distribution of N95s at other public K-12 districts in Sacramento County wasn’t immediately clear.
Sacramento City Unified and other local K-12 districts have seen large numbers of students and staff test positive since returning from winter break earlier this month. The district earlier this week paused field trips and some extracurricular activities including dances, fairs, rallies and “non-essential” athletic tournaments.
