Whether a student, whose family member has tested positive for COVID-19, returns to school or not can depend on how their home is set up.
At Wednesday's board of education meeting, Trustee Richard Lee questioned district superintendent Scott Robinson on points raised in a letter from a parent. The letter writer claims not all families within a classroom are informed if there is a positive case in the household of a student and, secondly, that asymptomatic students are being “directed” to attend even if someone in their household has tested positive.
Whether a student goes back to school after a family member has tested positive depends on the “configuration” of the household, explained school district spokesperson David Sadler.
Someone in isolation because of COVID-19 needs to be “completely removed” from the rest of the family.
If, for example, there is only one bathroom in the house, the whole family might be told to isolate and the student wouldn’t be allowed to return to school.
But if the student can be “reasonably separated” from the person who tested positive, it’s possible the student can return to school.
“This is why some children are able to continue to attend school and others are not,” Sadler said in an email to the Richmond News. “Ultimately, public health officials work closely with the family to determine the individual circumstances then determine whether the student can be allowed to return to school.”
On whether everyone in a class is notified of an exposure to COVID-19, Sadler explained a letter advising students to self-monitor is sent to everyone in a classroom if anyone tests positive.
“This was not initially the case, but public health adjusted their protocols in the fall and to our knowledge, these are the protocols VCH have been following in our schools,” Sadler added.
Robinson said, at Wednesday's meeting, these were not “school district-level” policies or decisions, rather decisions are made based on provincial-level health and safety guidelines and orders.
Anneke Wijtkamp, a parent of a Grade 8 teen who has virus-induced asthma, wrote the letter to the board of education to appeal to them to extend transitional learning, set to end around spring break (a board meeting will be held March 10 to decide whether or not to extend it).
