B.C. schools to have phased return from winter break

Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside added many of the measures staff will implement will be a part of the original safety plans.

Enhanced safety measures will include the cancellation of extracurricular sports, and plans to control crowding at schools, such as through staggered recess and break times, according to Whiteside.

Enhanced measures include @JM_Whiteside says:
reinforcing daily health check
staggering times to prevent crowding
assemblies / staff meetings virtual only
visitors only direct support
pausing extracurricular sports#bcpoli #covid19 @CityNewsVAN

— LizaYuzda (@LizaYuzda) December 29, 2021

BC Teachers’ Federation President Teri Mooring says the minimum schools need is one week to plan for students coming back in January.

“Dr. Henry has said, we’re in a different pandemic. And as she has also said, schools are reflective of communities that they’re in. And so we’re seeing the rampant spread of the Omicron variant in many communities. And so there needs to be planning in place.”

Mooring says she’s there have been ongoing conversations with the ministry steering committee and so far they’ve discussed the additional safety measures that need to be put in place. But in order to do execute these plans, staff need time.

For the sixth day this month, B.C. broke its daily COVID-19 case count with 2,944 infections detected in the last 24 hours. And over a five-day period, five people died.

Some British Columbians who were infected were teachers Mooring said, despite them being double vaccinated and following protocols limit exposure.

“We’re really concerned about what January will hold in terms of the spread of the Omicron their variants in schools. We’re hearing from a lot of teachers that despite being double vaccinated, and despite being very, very careful, they’re sick, they got the Omicron variant. And so we also don’t know how many education workers are actually going to be available to work. And so these are among the reasons why it’s so important that there be a delay to the start of in-person instruction.”

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• B.C. officials acknowledge record case counts don’t reflect ‘number of people who truly have COVID’

Mooring continues to add that while it’s important the province prioritize administering boosters to health care workers, frontline workers like teachers should be as well.

She stressed that come January, functional closures of schools might be needed at some B.C. schools because of the lack of staff who are infected.

Mooring is also calling for quality masks (for example N95/KN95) for students and school staff.

“We shouldn’t have to declare unsafe work, we shouldn’t have to take any kind of action, in order to get the basic health and safety measures put in place in schools. It’s unfortunate we’ve had to fight so long and hard for them. It’s unimaginable at this point, that we had to fight so hard for masks,” she stresses.

A month into the current school year, B.C. mandated masks for all children in schools. However, Mooring says “we still need help with masks because of the way it was implemented.”

“We need the provincial health office, we need government, we need district administration to really help implement that mask order, because it’s not being taken seriously in lots of parts of the province,” she says. “Half of the districts in the province don’t have adequate filters in their ventilation systems, we need to see mitigation factors there, we need to see N95 masks, and we need to see teachers prioritize for boosters and support staff as well.”