COLUMBUS, Ohio — How can schools safely operate amid the threat of the coronavirus?

Many countries are instituting dramatic changes in school buildings to keep teachers, kids and communities safe. They’re taking temperatures quickly with child-size devices, spraying shoes with disinfectant and adding plastic shields to desks.

All offer possible examples for Ohio, which has released a draft plan with very few specifics. Education experts say they’re watching closely, as school districts consider how to fill in the blanks.

“In the next four months, I think we’re going to learn what’s working in not working in those re-opening countries,” said John Bailey, a visiting fellow for the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank in Washington D.C. “That’s going to shape what’s going to happen here.”

Ohio’s proposal, developed by the Ohio Department of Education in consultation with education groups, incorporates some of the approaches seen in Asian and European countries, like requiring masks, reducing class sizes and requiring hand sanitizer. It leaves many of the particulars for schools to figure out, but emphasizes requirements for cleanliness.

The safeguards aren’t so much for the students per se, as they are for their families, teachers and other staff. Experts believe young people likely won’t develop severe illness from COVID-19, but they can transmit the virus it to others. And the AEI estimates 13,848 of Ohio’s teachers are 55 or older, putting them at risk for serious illness.

“It’s the adults in the school who are most vulnerable, and I think that’s where there are a lot of concern,” said Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union.

Related: Ohio plan envisions masks for students and teachers, at-home temperature checks when schools reopen

Whether Ohioans will accept some of the safety measures seen in other countries is unknown. So is how schools will pay for new safety supplies and whether parents will feel comfortable sending children to school.

Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education policy think-tank, said parents need to start wrapping their brains around how schools will be different when and if they re-open this fall. For those who are concerned with the safety measures, it may be important for schools to offer virtual learning options, he said.

“I think you’re going to want to tap into that idea in America, we’re used to having choices. We’re used to having some personal agency,” he said. “And that may be one way to do it...If people really don’t want to wear that mask then fine, you can learn at home. But if you want to come and be in the building, these are the rules that they’re going to lay out.”

Temperature checks

Ohio’s draft reopening plan calls for students and staff to check their temperatures at home each day. Tougher safety measures would be imposed if there’s an outbreak at the school, including mandatory at-school temperature checks.

Fever is one symptom of the coronavirus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but not everyone suffering from the virus has a fever.

In China, videos depict young students getting checked by what looks like a friendly robot before entering a school.

The robot, called WalkLake, doesn’t just check temperatures — it scans faces for “signs of illness,” Some western doctors have praised the expensive robots, while others have raised privacy concerns, saying the health data could be hacked or misused. But facial-recognition software is more common in China, where the totalitarian government has built an extensive surveillance state.

Frequent hand-washing

In countries including China and Denmark, many students are required to sanitize their hands on the way into school, and wash them regularly throughout the day.

“There is pretty much hourly washing going on,” a Danish school official told the BBC, so much so that the new problem is skin irritation and eczema.

The Ohio plan describes requiring schools to provide hand sanitizer, but doesn’t mention hand-washing requirements.

Disinfecting shoes

In Taiwan and China, students have been required to disinfect the bottoms of their shoes as they walk into school.

Desk dividers

Some schools in Taiwan and China have attached plastic or cardboard dividers, sometimes transparent, sometimes not, to school desks or cafeteria tables. The result resembles a cubicle.

Like sneeze guards now seen at some retail check-out lines, they are meant to block how far virus-carrying droplets can travel from talking, coughing or sneezing.

Limited class sizes

A core social distancing tenet is keeping people spaced out at least six feet, the maximum distance that health officials say coronavirus can spread to others in most instances.

So schools in other countries have been spacing out desks. Some have been holding certain classes outside.

But many classrooms, including in Ohio, aren’t big enough for this to work while maintaining the same class size. So the answer for school officials may be to try to limit students in classrooms.

In Ohio, this may require staggering which days students come to school. Earlier this month, DeWine shared the idea of having two cohorts of students come to school two days a week, with cleaning in between.

“I think everyone would like to see schools back in session in August,” Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statehouse news briefing. “How could they exist in the world where the coronavirus is still here? How could they get the social distancing? It’s very difficult."

What about lunchtime?

In Taiwan, students have eaten lunch at their desks to avoid congregating in large groups in the school cafeteria. In China and other countries, students have gone to the cafeteria, but had dividers set up between them.

The draft Ohio plan doesn’t offer specifics, but currently suggests that schools “consider alternative approaches” to delivering breakfast and lunch to students.

Face masks

Different countries are handling masks differently. In China and Taiwan, many students and teachers have been required to wear masks. In France, where schools re-opened this week, only teachers are.

Public-health experts say when used properly, masks can help block the spread of spit and mucus that can carry the virus. They also can protect the wearer.

“Masks represent limited benefit. But a true and real benefit,” said Dr. Scott Frank, a physician and professor who chairs Case Western Reserve University’s master’s of public health program. They may not be meant for everyone though, he said, like those with asthma or anxiety issues.

Some face masks are more invasive than others. In Thailand, a photographer captured students training to be Buddhist monks wearing plastic face shields.

In China, some children have worn less intimidating looking protective face coverings that resemble rain hats with plastic lining hanging from the brim.

“We want to make sure kids don’t feel scared coming to school,” said Bailey with the American Enterprise Institute. “I think that’s where we’re going to learn a lot with the face shield experiment going on in China."

But can we afford it?

Whether Ohio schools are adequately funded has been a political controversy in Ohio for years. A large portion of school funding comes from local property taxes, meaning wealthier areas have more resources. This is why the Ohio Supreme Court in 1997 declared school funding here unconstitutional. The state provides extra money meant to close the gap, but inequities remain.

And the state is cutting $300 million from schools this spring.

Any of these enhanced safety measures – even simpler ones like hand sanitizer — will require money.

But if teachers or other employees call off sick, or need to be shifted to distance-learning jobs if they are part of a medically vulnerable group, staffing needs will emerge.

“We might be looking at a huge need for subs,” said Steve Dyer, an education-policy analyst for Innovation Ohio, a progressive think tank in Columbus.

“It’s brutal,” said Petrilli, the president of the Fordham Institute. “The big question is if the federal government is going to come to the rescue here.”

Frank said he’s skeptical that American schools will have the resources to implement some of the higher-tech measures media have covered in East Asia.

Things like hand-washing stations or hand sanitizer, Frank said he can imagine seeing. Things like plexiglass screens, probably not.

“If masks are supplied to kids, which would surprise me, I don’t think the supply would maintain over time," he said. “And the high-tech version of temperature measurement and spraying down shoes and clothing, number one, I’m not sure how effective those are. But I would not anticipate the U.S. spending money to do that.”

What will Americans accept?

It remains to be seen whether the measures will be effective, economically feasible or likely to be accepted by Americans, known for placing great value on individual freedom.

Take masks, for example.

After years of recommending against them, health officials ended up changing their stance on face masks this year, partially in response to a grassroots campaign and apparent success in Austria.

They’ve lately become a cultural flashpoint, increasingly along partisan lines, as some states, including Ohio have considered mandating them in public areas. DeWine considered doing so when he re-opened retail stores earlier this month, but quickly backed away.

“Public health is famous for its paternalism,” Frank said. “That paternalism is altruistic, but people rebel against paternalistic approaches.”

But a poll conducted earlier this month by the National Parents Union found broad support for mandatory protective measures in schools, some of which might be considered invasive. Seventy-nine percent supported mandatory temperature checks. Seventy-five percent supported staggering classes to allow more space for desks to be spread out, and 70% supported mandatory masks.

“I’ll admit I was surprised by this,” said Bailey, the researcher with the American Enterprise Institute. “I’d thought for of the more disruptive interventions, we’d see less parental support. But it seems like we’re seeing parents put safety over convenience in some ways. But that could change. The sense of parental support could look different in August, and that’s OK.”

East Asia can provide another example too — re-openings could be postponed if there are more COVID-19 outbreaks.

In South Korea, which has been recognized internationally for its aggressive response to the virus, officials had planned to reopen schools last week after confirmed new COVID-19 cases had largely ceased.

But the reopening has been delayed after dozens of people, including teachers, were infected after an outbreak in Seoul at bars and nightclubs. Authorities have traced the outbreak back to a single 29 year-old man who showed no symptoms. Bars in in the city of roughly 10 million people also have been closed.

”Our ability to detect those outbreaks and mitigate them is going to decide whether we can have some semblance of normality,” said Madhav Bhatta, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Kent State University. “Versus are we going to have again an uncontrolled epidemic going forward until we have an effective vaccine.”