Restart Plan BIMMI Covid 19 Policies

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July 1, 2020 return to School Facility

The safety and well-being of our staff, faculty, students and clients is paramount to Body in Mind Massage Institute, as we reopen our Private Career School on July 1st in the new landscape resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

To ensure this goal, BIMMI has undertaken the task to create a comprehensive Covid-19 Policies Action Plan, to which all will strictly adhere. This Action Plan is in accordance with the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards’ (FSMTB) Guidelines for Practice -with Covid-19 Considerations, as well as incorporates OSHA, CDC, NJDOE and NJDOLWD guidelines.

All staff, faculty, therapists and students – current and future – will be expected to do their part. Responsibilities will be rotated wherever possible.

Staff, Faculty, instructors, therapists and students – current and future – will be required to initial each section and sign this form as proof of acknowledgment and understanding. A copy of this signed form will be emailed to each person for their own records.

In addition, BIMMI will create a mandatory training program, to be recorded for perpetuity, to cover the following:

School Cleanliness, Disinfection, and Disease Prevention

I. Infection Control:

• BIMMI will perform Health Screenings for faculty, staff, students and visitors.
• Students and faculty should self-monitor for the signs and symptoms of COVID-19 every day.
• BIMMI will teach faculty, staff, students and visitors COVID-19 causes a wide range of symptoms and encourage them to treat any new symptom as suspicious, sharing the knowledge that the most common symptoms are mild cold or flu-like symptoms, especially a cough, sore throat, and shortness of breath.
• Students and faculty will be required to take their temperature before the start of class. Day Class students will be required to take their temperature again in the afternoon (when viruses tend to spike temperature).
• Should a school community member develop a temperature or symptoms of illness, they should stay home from school and self-isolate for 14 days or seek to obtain COVID testing so that they can be cleared of infection and return to school.
• Alcohol-based hand sanitizer will remain easily accessible throughout the facility. Students, faculty, and staff will be required to wash and sanitize their hands regularly.
• School areas will be decluttered and any unnecessary items will be removed to reduce the daily disinfection burden of wiping surfaces (e.g., magazines, books, bookshelves, knickknacks, candy bowls, tea stations, damaged equipment waiting to be fixed, learning tools that are rarely used, etc.).
• One faculty member will be assigned to greet the school community at the primary classroom entrance to the building.
• Students and faculty will line up at the front door, maintaining 6 feet of distance between them.
• Assigned faculty members will use no-touch thermal temperature scans to confirm entering people have a temperature that is no higher than 100.4°F. Ask each arriving person if they have developed cold or flu-like symptoms or other symptoms suggesting illness. If anyone has a fever or has developed symptoms, they are sent home.
• Each arriving person will need to sanitize their hands upon arrival.
• BIMMI will allow the option of remote instruction to any individual faculty or student who is unable to participate in in-person instruction.

II. Physical Distancing:

• BIMMI will enforce social distancing throughout the facility.
• BIMMI will adjust classroom meeting days and times to accommodate smaller class sizes, as necessary.
• In lecture rooms where students sit at tables, BIMMI will promote physical distancing by removing extra chairs, spacing chairs 6 feet apart, placing tape in the shape of an X on areas where people should not sit or stand, or by blocking off areas where people may be tempted to congregate.
• BIMMI will delineate lecture or teaching space for instructors that reminds students to maintain their physical distance. Unmasked instructors must maintain 6 feet physical distancing from students. BIMMI will identify areas where teachers can talk with students privately while maintaining physical distance.
• In classrooms where students exchange massage and bodywork, BIMMI will place tape on flooring to indicate where massage tables can be located and plan 10 feet of space between places where students stand while giving massage and the next massage area to allow movement around the table and avoid encroachment upon nearby peers.
• Safety Plexiglas shields will be installed on reception counters as a physical barrier between people when conducting transactions.
• School areas will be organized to promote physical distancing by removing chairs, spacing chairs 6 feet apart, placing tape in the shape of an X on areas where people should not sit or stand, or by blocking off areas where people may be tempted to congregate.

III. Cloth Face Coverings:

• BIMMI will provide training to students on proper donning, doffing and washing of face masks.
• Staff, faculty, students and visitors must wear masks in the facility except where doing so would inhibit the individual’s health.
• BIMMI will provide surgical or other disposable face masks to those without a face covering upon arrival.
• Students must wear masks during lectures.
• Both the student acting as a client and the student acting as a practitioner must wear a face mask for the duration of the massage exchange labs and clinicals, except when prone on the massage table.

IV. Cleaning and Disinfection:

• Students and faculty will clean floors at the end of each shift (day class – by 5pm; night class – by 10pm) by mopping hard floors with an EPA-registered floor cleaner. Vacuum carpeted floors using a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA air filter. Wear a face mask and vacuum when there are no people in the space (vacuums can disperse respiratory particles into the air).
• Students should place their personal items on their own desk/table or designated area that supports physical distancing. BIMMI will institute a regular schedule for disinfecting designated areas after each use.
• Students, and faculty will be required to clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces throughout the school day with an EPA-registered disinfectant: high-touch surfaces include door handles, counters, tabletops, pens used to complete paperwork, dry erase markers, clipboards, bones and skeletons used as learning tools, desks, light switches, phones, and keyboards.
• When an individual is suspected or confirmed to have Covid-19, we will close off areas visited by the ill person, open outside doors and use ventilating fans to increase circulation in the area, close the area to all persons and wait 24 hours or as long as practical and then conduct cleaning and disinfection as directed by the CDC’s Cleaning and Disinfection for Community Facilities guidelines.

V. Hand Hygiene:

• Faculty will continually reinforce proper hand hygiene, proper respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette, ongoing physical distancing, and attention to disinfection of high-touch surfaces and surfaces potentially contaminated during massage exchanges.
• BIMMI will maintain adequate equipment and supplies for staff and students to wash and sanitize hands frequently.
• We will place stations with hand sanitizer with 60 percent or more alcohol content at all building entry points and throughout the facility.
• BIMMI will provide staff and students adequate break time to wash and sanitize hands frequently.

VI. Education and Training:

• BIMMI will provide training for students regarding Covid-19, including sanitization, hand hygiene, social distancing, practices and protocols of the school to enforce the COVID-19 safety plan.
• BIMMI will display CDC Hand Hygiene posters and other “How to Protect Yourself and Others” materials.
• Using these guidelines set out in this document as a foundation, BIMMI will conduct a mandatory training session for all current and future students and faculty regarding BIMMI and industry policy and procedural changes related to COVID-19. The training session will also cover:
  • COVID-19, what is it, what is known about transmission, symptoms, and risk factors related to massage and bodywork.
  • Methods for preventing the spread of COVID-19 in classrooms and in the student clinic.
  • How to practice proper hand hygiene, respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette, physical distancing, and disinfection of high-touch surfaces.
  • How to use PPE. How to put it on. How to take it off. When to use it.
  • School protocols and procedures related to COVID-19.
  • Student clinic protocols and procedures related to COVID-19.
  • Self-monitoring practices and what to do if you develop symptoms.

VII. Ventilation:

• Faculty and instructors will ventilate areas of the school as often as possible by opening doors to circulate fresh air.
• Tables and chairs will be set up outside the facility during school hours to allow students to take breaks outside in the fresh air.
• HEPA air filtration units will be placed in each room at the facility to ensure proper ventilation.

VIII. Collaboration with Health Officials:

• BIMMI will collaborate with local and State officials, including local health departments and the local office of emergency management to share reopening plans and revise those plans as necessary.
• BIMMI will establish testing of students, staff and faculty upon entry by taking their temperature before the start of class. Full-time, “Day” Class students will be required to take their temperature again in the afternoon.
• We will maintain a log of students, faculty, staff and visitors to the facility to facilitate contact tracing and reporting any instances of Covid-19 to local health officials.
• If someone tests positive, whomever came in contact with the infected person will be tested for the virus, and must go into self-quarantine for 14 days following close contact with that person.
• All other individuals who have had close contact with the ill individual will be notified that they may have been exposed, and it will be suggested that they also self-quarantine for 14 days. This might be shortened if accurate testing determines that they are not infected.
• The room(s) and all the tools that the infected individual used will be thoroughly disinfected and left unused for a minimum of three days.

IX. Special Guidance for labs, and clinicals:

All labs and clinical programs will observe the above “Action Plan” in accordance with the FSMTB, CDC, OSHA and NJDOH public health standards for personal protective equipment providing masks for students, staff, faculty and visitors as well as enforcing physical distancing, sanitizing equipment, hand hygiene, cleaning and disinfection protocols and exclusion of individuals with symptoms or a positive diagnosis of Covid-19.