Saturday January 1, 2022 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Today on New Year’s Day, BC Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside posted on Twitter about the angst many parents and families are feeling about the return to classrooms during the burgeoning Omicron wave of the COVID pandemic.
“We know that schools play a big role in supporting students and families. Districts are working to support as many families in the first week as they can, while also ensuring that the critical preparation work can happen to support a full return to school on January 10th,” Whiteside wrote.
Schools often provide meal support, sometimes technical support (e.g. laptop loans), and a stable routine, in addition to the K-12 curriculum that is mandated in BC.
“Districts have been asked to prioritize the children of health care workers, students with disabilities and diverse needs, and the children of other essential workers, including teachers and school staff, as their capacity allows,” Whiteside Tweeted out today.
Doing this on New Year’s Day is to likely test the waters of public opinion, but for others it might seem like an intrusion on what is otherwise a day off for families.
Phased return to class:
The phased return to classrooms after winter break was announced on December 29, 2021 by Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry and Minister Whiteside. Children of essential workers will return January 3 and 4 with all teachers there, with all other students returning to in-school instruction starting Monday January 10.
The idea is to give teachers and school administration time to ensure good spacing in classrooms, to stagger the arrival/dismissal and recess times, and prepare continuity plans.
Work around ventilation started in many schools and school districts last year, with the benefit of one-time federal grant funding that was distributed around to all BC schools on a per-capita basis. New ventilation infrastructure also requires ongoing maintenance funding in school board budgets.
Continuity planning:
School districts will be busy doing ‘continuity planning’, to try and fulfill the delivery of education during a period of anticipated high levels of absences — by teachers, other staff and also students — due to the rapidly-spreading Omicron variant.
Here on the west shore, SD62 Superintendent Scott Stinson said about the January 3 to 7 week being used for planning:
“The pause will be helpful for schools to plan for learning continuity should student or staff absences warrant the need for a temporary functional school closure. Time to plan for this possibility will be helpful for the system,” said Stinson last week.
Public comment:
In response to Minister Whiteside’s post today, these comments were posted on Twitter:
- “Support? Support means making the conditions in schools as safe as they can be. By not doing that, you are “supporting” children to enter schools that are not safe.” ~ Irene Corman
- “Instead of preparing for the disruption of functional closures and illness, why are high schools not going online for 3 weeks to maintain stability and learning for teens like mine for the last 3 weeks of 1st semester?!” ~ Lynn
- “Appears High school kids will be back to full participation in band & PE with maskless peers for many hours per week. Only precaution for band seems to be “don’t share an instrument.” Is that sufficient for airborne virus? Should these courses be paused for couple weeks?” ~ Lynn
- “Covid is airborne. Put in the necessary mitigations.” ~ Lori Bedard
- “It seems that so much more could have been done including HEPA filters / proper ventilation in classrooms, N95 for teachers and proper masks for students, and lowering class sizes so spacing possible. Not to late to start investing in these – sign that you are trying” ~ Bruce McCloy
- “Most important although is making sure staff and students are vaccinated. Imagine vaccination clinics at every school Monday and Tuesday – Free up the system for others after and do all we can to avoid functional closures. Unless it is functional closures that you want.” ~ Bruce McCloy
- “This will include priority boosters for school staff, n95s, hepa filters and reduced classroom levels right? Including sending exposure notices out so we can all assess our risks? ~ John Morris”
