Kids are due back in school in just a couple of short weeks and B.C.’s COVID-19 situation has radically changed since June, when the pandemic appeared to be on the wane in B.C.
At the end of June, cases were averaging about 50 per day. As of Aug. 13, they’re averaging nearly 500 a day, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant.
That’s a vastly different scenario than when the province put out its back-to-school plan, calling for a full return to class that would no longer include mandatory masks, cohort groups for students or distance learning initiatives that allow a student to stay connected to their neighbourhood school.
Self-health checks would still be required and students would have to stay home if sick. If they wanted a remote-learning option, they would need to enrol in distributed learning, a valuable program, but one that cuts ties with the neighbourhood school.
I’m confident this plan will be updated, but it seems the province is waiting until the eleventh hour to get it done. Parents and teachers are rightly very worried about how to keep themselves and their children safe in schools.
Dozens of parents and educators rallied last weekend for stronger protections against COVID-19 in September, including Jennifer Heighton, an organizer with the Safe Schools Coalition.
“In a full classroom, students will be side-by-side, sharing the same air, for hours at a time. And if your child is in a K-Gr. 6 class, the entire roomful of students are unvaccinated,” Heighton said in a news release. “To be unmasked, unvaccinated, without ventilation improvements, with Delta circulating, is asking for trouble. Especially considering that doctors in the United States and elsewhere are finding that the Delta variant is sending more children to the hospital than previous strains.”
I asked parents and teachers on Twitter what their concerns are about returning to school under the current plan and received nearly 100 responses, many calling for a universal mask mandate in schools, some calling for a vaccine mandate for teachers and school staff, others wanting to know how ventilation has been improved in schools and still others wanting remote options that allow students to stay connected to their local schools. Many of the responses were concerned the plan is being left to the last minute, making it impossible for parents and teachers to plan.
Surrey parent Alannah Sheriland’s seven-year-old daughter has type one diabetes, celiac disease and anemia. Last year, she attended a blended program, but this year such programs are being suspended and there is no care plan in place.
“My anxiety is very high at the thought of having to send her to school without a mask mandate, the ability to physically distance in the classroom due to lack of space, no proper ventilation, reduced cleaning measures and as I mentioned no care plan,” Sheriland said in an email.
Sheriland would like to see “swift and proactive” actions by provincial authorities to make sure children are safe in schools.
So far, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has said an update is in the works, but no details have been released. She also continues to say that schools are safer than other settings.
“If we look at schools, we don’t see a high risk of severe illness, we don’t see any deaths associated with schools,” she said in the August 10 briefing. “We see that schools are a safe place and we saw a really good drop off in cases when we had immunization of teachers and school staff, which we prioritized. So the level of action we need to take to prevent severe illness and death is different in different settings.”
In the United States, where some schools have already opened, the number of children in hospitals with COVID-19 is on the rise, although it’s not yet clear if the Delta variant is making them sicker. In B.C., 164 children younger than 19 have been hospitalized with COVID-19, 22 have been in ICU and two have died. There have been 17 cases of multi-system inflammatory syndrome, a rare inflammatory syndrome associated with COVID-19 in children, and long-COVID is also a concern. Children younger than 12 will not be vaccinated before September.
B.C. teachers, public health officials and the provincial government deserve kudos for keeping schools open throughout the 2020-21 school year. The effects of closed schools are devastating for children, some of whom never catch up, and for their mental health.
But schools also need to be safe. I fully expect the government to announce that masks will be mandatory, that cohorts will be back and that remote options will be provided. If they don’t, they’re risking the safety of our children.
Tracy Sherlock is a freelance journalist who writes about education and social issues. Read her blog or email her [email protected]
