From Disinfectant Wipes to Puppy Pee Pads
We have all heard about and maybe even have been directly impacted by the ongoing supply chain issues that the world is experiencing as a result of the pandemic. During the 2020 2021 school year, the School District’s Purchasing Department was faced with many challenges in sourcing and supplying resources critical to our operations – not just for regular day to day operations, but also for following the guidelines of our pandemic response. This response required the purchasing of many new items – masks, hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, personal protection equipment, clear plexiglass barriers and the list goes on. We think you’d be interested in seeing the quantities of some of the items that were secured – and keep in mind, every other school district in the world was trying to purchase exactly the same items at exactly the same time.
- Disinfectant wipes - 2,672,640 wipes
- Hand sanitizer - 20,646 litres
- Plexi-glass barriers - 7,816 square feet / 245 4X8 sheets
- Masks (cloth & disposable) - 103,350 masks
- Puppy Pee Pads (yes!) - 4,000 pads
We were also fortunate to have some supplies donated to us. This includes 76,000 children’s masks, 29,000 adult masks, and 27,000 bottles of hand sanitizer.
The mask mandate for this school year is already putting a strain on our supply. The number of disposable masks distributed in September was about 22,700 masks. Compare this to our highest month last year of about 3,000 disposable masks and you can see it will continue to be a challenge to secure and supply this resource.
And in case you are wondering – puppy pee pads are used in our band classes for draining spit valves. We have a new respect for our band teachers!