Douglas County teachers are stepping up to help health-care providers facing a shortage of protective gear by using high-tech tools to create needed products.

Career and Technical Education engineering teachers at Castle View High School, Legend High School, Mountain Vista High School and Rock Canyon High School are 3D-printing face shields and donating them to Sky Ridge Medical Center.

Kent Allison, an engineering teacher at Mountain Vista High School, said in a statement that people need to join together during the uncertain times caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If that means I check on shut-in neighbors to see if they need help, or 3D-print face shields for doctors on the front lines, we all can find that thing to do to help out. I am honored to help in any way I can and will continue to do so until we get through this,” Allison said.

Sky Ridge Vice President of Marketing Linda Watson in a statement thanked the Douglas County School District for its support, commending the teachers' “creative engineering.”

“We are deeply humbled by the outpouring of love and support from our community,” she said.

A shortage of personal protective equipment, or PPE, is one of the most critical issues facing health-care workers as they prepare for a surge in COVID-19 patients.

Gov. Jared Polis has called the shortage of medical equipment a “supply-chain crisis.” The state ordered thousands and in some cases millions of masks, gowns, face shield and gloves, along with hundreds of ventilators. Polis also wrote a letter to Vice President Mike Pence saying the state would need 10,000 ventilators.

Scott Bookman, incident commander for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said in an April 1 news conference with the governor the state expects a surge of patients will overwhelm hospitals sometime between April and July.