New B.C. school mask mandate has some parents considering sending kids back to class

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The universal mask mandate at B.C. schools might be enough for some parents who have been keeping their kids at home to send them back to school.

Jocelyn Pitsch says she has been doing home learning with her six-year-old son since September. She’s been worried about her child becoming infected with COVID-19, as he has suffered from viral asthma in the past.

“That is asthma that is especially triggered by viral infection,” she explained.

Pitsch says she took her son on the first day of Kindergarten and immediately switched to home learning when she saw her child was the only one wearing a mask.

“I’m looking at all the children who are filing into the school building and none of them are producing masks. None of the parents seem to be concerned they’re all going in unmasked. I just had this sinking feeling,” she described.

“The masking isn’t to protect yourself, necessarily. It’s to protect everyone around you. If my son’s the only one masked but everyone around him is freely breathing their particles out in the air … They gather for circle time and they’re singing and they’re chatting. It’s like, ‘We can’t be having this. It isn’t going to be safe.'”

Read more: B.C. mandates masks for all K-12 students

Jason Billingsley’s son is in Grade 4 and has been home-learning since last year.

“I am a high-risk individual. I got an immune disorder and another disability,” Billingsley explained. “We thought it would be prudent to maintain at-home learning.”

It was a difficult decision for Billingsley to keep his son from going into the classroom.

“Our consideration was mental health for our son. He’s a very social boy. That was the one big lacking factor in doing the home schooling. We just didn’t feel confident that people were taking airborne transmission very seriously,” he said.

Billingsley adds some family members in the U.S. have recovered from COVID-19 but are experiencing lingering effects.

“That’s why we’re like, ‘No, no exposure. No, we’re not sending him back until he’s vaccinated.'”

On Friday, the Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced all B.C. students in Kindergarten to Grade 12 will be required to wear a mask indoors at school. The updated policy comes into effect on Monday.

The news isn’t enough for Billingsley to send his son back to class, but it does make him more comfortable allowing playdates.

“I’m super happy these things are going in, and honestly I think it does open up some opportunities for us as a family, to have him interact with some of his existing schoolmates from when he was in the class,” he said, adding he would continue to have precautions in place.

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Meanwhile, Pitsch is considering her comfort level and whether she feels ready to send her son back to school.

“We aren’t sure yet what Monday will look like,” she said.

However she is hopeful her family will feel comfortable sending him back to class before the end of the term.

“I believe that even with them doing it imperfectly — as I know it will be, especially with the younger ones — that when they all begin to wear masks on Monday, classroom transmissions will drop significantly. I believe if we can see within a week or two in the cases and in the reporting … that we will then know that this is effective and it’s making classrooms safer and I think we’ll have the confidence to return him to class before the end of the term.”

People who cannot tolerate wearing a mask for health or behavioural reasons are exempt from the mask policy, as are people who are not able to put on or remove a mask without help.

Masks are allowed to be temporarily removed to take part in high-intensity physical activity or play wind instruments, as well as to eat or drink. Staff who are helping someone with a disability or diverse ability where visual cues, facial expressions and/or lip reading is important are not required to wear a mask.

Dr. Bonnie Henry says it's because there has been a rapid increase in school cases over the last two weeks. Says it is another layer of protection. This will go until the end of the term.

— Robyn Crawford (@robyncrawford_) October 1, 2021

Pitsch believes bringing in a mask mandate now may challenging, as kids will have already settled into their routines for the school year.

She would like to see better ventilation at schools and a return to learning cohorts.

But for Billingsley, even the addition of those measures wouldn’t be enough. He says he’s on the “extreme side of caution” and wants his son to be vaccinated against the illness before he returns to the classroom. He’s keeping his fingers crossed that will happen by next year.