The Warwick school committee met on Thursday, Jan. 21 to provide updates on school reopening, answer community questions about COVID protocols, and announce a testing event for secondary students.

Superintendent Philip Thornton announced a state-run COVID testing event will be held on Monday, Feb. 8 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Warwick Veterans Middle School. Consent forms have been sent out to parents and guardians, and must be returned by Friday, Jan. 29. Parents and guardians will be assigned a time to bring their students to the testing site.

“I hope people take advantage of this,” said chairperson Judy Cobden during the meeting. “I think it would be in the best interest of our secondary schools to keep going forward in trying to control the virus. I think it’s excellent.”

Administration chose to target secondary students for the testing event because students play sports and have jobs, said Cathy Bonang, secretary to the superintendent. The state provided Warwick schools with only 1,600 rapid tests, so the event is first come first serve.

The school committee also addressed community concerns regarding the cleaning products used in the classrooms.

“We did have several communications a few days back from folks in the city who were concerned about students using wipes to clean their immediate area,” said Thornton.

Administration received a letter from Dr. Alexander-Scott and the Rhode Island Department of Health stating that it’s “perfectly appropriate” for students in grades six through twelve to use wipes during the pandemic, and advised districts to use certain cleaning products.

Warwick is currently using a brand called SaniWipe, which is safe for home and business use, according to Kevin Oliver, facilities maintenance and operations manager, although he acknowledges there are “products that are better to use.”

The CDC recommends using a product that is 70 percent or more alcohol and/or 3 percent hydrogen peroxide.

Because of this recommendation, Robert Baxter, executive director of finance and operations for Warwick schools, said that, “in a scramble, we identified vendors with these products and are purchasing enough wipes to get us through the month of February.”

Baxter also pointed out that Warwick faculty and students are currently using approximately 30,000 wipes per day. “The new order is arriving to the district on Monday, and we will propose an additional order at the next school committee meeting in February,” he said.

Teachers, administrators, and students are not allowed to bring their own cleaning supplies in because of the possibility of cross contamination.

The school committee also took a vote to move forward to discuss a return to meeting in person, pending information about logistics from the administration.

“I support meeting in person, as long as we keep live streaming the meetings,” said David Testa. “I think this is something that has been beneficial to the community.

Because of COVID social distancing and indoor requirements, a large enough facility isn’t available to have both committee and public attend the meetings. The meetings will continue to be streamed via YouTube so the public may attend virtually.

The next school committee meeting is on February 2, 2021.