B.C. parents, teachers call for delay to start of school as Omicron spreads
Posted December 29, 2021 6:05 am.
Last Updated December 30, 2021 7:04 am.
UPDATE: Students in B.C. will gradually return from their winter break in the New Year. Read more.
Calls are growing for a delayed return to classes in B.C., as the province continues to see high daily COVID-19 case counts, largely driven by the Omicron variant.
We are set to hear from Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, and Health Minister Adrian Dix on Wednesday at 3 p.m.
This is the first COVID-19 update in B.C. since Christmas Eve. Whiteside was a last-minute addition to the announcement on Wednesday morning.
This update will come just days before most classes are expected to resume after the winter break.
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The calls for a delay come from some teachers and parents in light of the current pandemic situation. Others are also pushing for additional health measures, using the hashtag #BCedEnhancedMeasures, which was trending on Twitter for some time.
One person says the province needs to expedite boosters for staff and delay the return to school until Omicron can be addressed.
“Until testing and contact tracing is restored, and airborne measures in place, in-person class is dangerous,” the tweet reads.
#bced needs expedited boosters for staff, and a delayed start date until this #Omicron wave can be addressed. @adriandix @jjhorgan @JM_Whiteside
Until testing and contact tracing is restored, and airborne measures in place, in-person class is dangerous. #BCedEnhancedMeasures— Pups Mom (@PupsMom) December 29, 2021
Some teachers argue schools cannot cope well if too many of the people who run them get sick.
“Our CUPE- EA colleagues need priority vaccines. Many children they work with are not able to wear masks and have frontline essential working parents. Their risk is too great [to] ignore,” one person writes.
“Most teachers are now well past their 6 months since their 2nd dose. Returning teachers and students to schools before teachers have all had their boosters is foolhardy, without healthy teachers #BCEd collapses. Get third shots in arms now @adriandix,” writes another.
Most teachers are now well past their 6 months since their 2nd dose. Returning teachers and students to schools before teachers have all had their boosters is foolhardy, without healthy teachers #BCEd collapses. Get third shots in arms now @adriandix #BCedEnhancedMeasures
— Dave McCristall (@davemccr) December 29, 2021
A number of parents have also taken to social media to question why they’re expected to send their children to school in the midst of the largest wave B.C. has seen so far.
The BC Teachers’ Federation has already urged the province to bring in changes, saying the Omicron variant has changed the pandemic, so safety measures in schools must change too.
Open letter calls for additional COVID safety measures in schools
In an open letter to Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside, Safe Schools Coalition BC highlights the toll high community transmission of Omicron has taken on B.C.’s COVID testing system. The group says with the variant being “fairly new,” there’s still much to learn about its long-term effects.
The coalition is calling on Whiteside to move schools to remote learning until transmission in a health authority is below five per cent positivity.
“We’re calling for that because community transmission of Omicron is quite high, in fact, to the point where testing centres can’t keep up. That means that the province has actually no idea how many real cases there are out there, they’re recommending that people just isolate at home if they have symptoms instead of coming to the testing centre unless they’re over 65,” Jennifer Heighton with the coalition told CityNews.
“In that case, if we were to reopen schools, the changes of there being illness in the class fairly quickly would be quite high. That someone would show up — either a staff member or a student — that is positive might not know it yet, [they] could pass it to others and it would go on from there. Reopening schools at this point in time … is not really the safest way to go, and in fact could spread a lot more illness throughout the community.”
Open Letter to @JM_Whiteside:
With community transmission of #Omicron so high that @CDCofBC has lost capacity to keep track of #’s, #SafeSchoolsCoalitionBC is demanding immediate action for safer #bced.#BCedEnhancedMeasures
Read our letter here:https://t.co/u9uo4TOR85
— Jennifer Heighton (@jheighton3) December 29, 2021
The group says the province needs to buy HEPA air purifiers for all learning spaces, provide N95/KN95 masks — or the equivalent — to staff and students that need them, and to provide carbon dioxide monitors for schools “to monitor stale air buildup throughout the day.”
It is also demanding the province “provide accurate, timely reporting of positive cases that have resulted in a school exposure,” provide rapid tests whenever a positive case is confirmed in a class, and to provide remote learning options for families who request them.
Ramping up of vaccine provisions for staff and students is another demand.
“BC has maintained that when community transmission is low, schools can be kept open. Omicron has sent COVID-19 transmission to the highest levels BC has ever seen, to the point where BC has lost the ability to accurately track case numbers. Under the circumstances, if BC were to reopen schools, the amount of disruption caused by mass illness, frequent absences and staff shortages would be high,” the letter reads.
Heighton says it’s clear in-person learning is the ideal situation and is beneficial to kids. That’s why, she explains, the coalition has been demanding additional safety measures from the start.
“It’s unfortunate that the province didn’t do that right at the beginning of September when we’d asked for a lot of these things to happen, because we could have kept schools open, possibly, had that been the case,” she said.
“Whenever they bring up the mental health aspect of in-person learning, I totally agree that being in-person is a wonderful thing for kids,” Heighton continued. “However, not managing COVID also has mental health aspects, when children worry about bringing it home to their families or getting sick themselves.”
Other provinces have already taken the step to delay the start of classes after the winter break. Many B.C. universities, meanwhile, are switching to online learning in the New Year.
