SAN ANGELO, Texas — On Tuesday, May 5, Gov. Greg Abbott announced an executive order to allow hair and nail salons to re-open for business Friday, May 8. However, it was not clear if cosmetology schools were included in that order.
"We had put in several calls trying to find out how it is going to affect schools, because we were kind of left in limbo," Steve Weilert, owner of the Texas College of Cosmetology (TCC), said.
On the morning of Thursday, May 7, Gov. Abbott announced cosmetology schools could also re-open Friday. The announcement, Weilert said, shocked him.
"That kind of came as a shock to us...I thought they would open salons back up and see how that goes first, and we would be two to three weeks behind salons," he said.
Weilert, who's owned TCC with his wife for the last 30 years, said his students balance too many other responsibilities outside of school to tell them to return to campus within 24 hours.
"We get out at 3, so a lot of them have part-time jobs that they were doing, and a lot of them that are essential and work in healthcare and nursing homes and stuff like that, have now started working full time for those places. So, we wanted to give them time to phase into a student role as opposed to a parent, mom, worker, whatever they're doing now, so they can get back into their student mode," he said.
Weilert said his staff and students are prepared and well-practiced when it comes to health guidelines and social distancing practices issued by the state.
"For a few weeks before we were ordered to close, we were taking people's temperature as they came in, taking the student temperatures, the staff's temperatures, and we will continue to do that. We're going to remove all magazines from the lobby so there's not a lot of touching. We're also moving all retail products behind the counters. Hair stylists will work at every other station, so the students are actually going to be about 10 feet apart instead of six.The staff will also wear face masks and we will encourage our clients to wear masks where they can as well," he said.
Weilert said he thinks most services will remain the same, however some - such as facials - may become unavailable for the time being because of the close contact required between customer and provider.
The school's doors will officially open to the public May 19.