SHERWOOD, Ark. — When school starts in the fall some classrooms will look wildly different all for the sake of safety, and a Sherwood business is helping with that.
“We silkscreen print on these and they sit out in a field for years, so it’s outdoor-durable type stuff so you know it’s going to be durable sitting inside a classroom,” SCN Printing Inc. Project Manager Casey Moore said.
Moore said his wife, a first-grade teacher has been in search of more ways to go back to school comfortably.
“She happened to send me a partition that she saw on a teacher group and she was like, ‘hey check these out. Is this something you guys could do?'” Moore said.
Moore and his team printed their first partition and posed the idea of selling them to friends on Facebook.
“He put a post on there just saying, 'direct manufacturer, this is an idea we have.' A couple of crude pictures that I had taken, and it was just blowing up,” Moore said.
Now, they’ve received over 3,000 orders from around the country. Moore isn’t 100% sure if this will protect students and teachers, but he does know it will make them feel more at ease.
“I have a wife who’s a teacher and she’s ready to see kids. I have a little first-grade girl who’s so ready for first grade,” Moore said.
Another benefit is that it will keep employees working during a time when business is slow.
“Even if we’re not going to make these again after two, three weeks, fine. If it keeps our employees working full shifts, not having to go home early, then that’s even better,” Moore said.
Moore said this is an affordable option for schools as most partitions on the web start at about $100 each. He said theirs can be purchased in bulk starting at about $19 dollars each using Title 1 funding.
Thursday, they met with area school leaders to discuss using the partitions in different settings like classrooms to cafeterias.