LEAVE PASS FOR PUPILS
... but get ready kids for online learning
PARENTS will be handed the responsibility of caring for their children for the rest of the school term after the State Government announced pupil-free days from next week for all children bar those of essential workers.
But it’s not a free pass for kids or their parents with teachers now to focus on preparing for online learning in the new term.
PLANS to pull kids out of classrooms for educators to prepare a remote curriculum has struck the right balance between protecting economic interests and ensuring student safety, according to a Cairns parent, but no plan to tackle plummeting daycare enrolments has operators in a spin.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced schools would move to pupil-free days from next week, although essential workers could continue sending children to school.
The ruling applies to all schools, not just state schools.
Community dissent relating to a National Cabinet decision to keep schools open has been brewing since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis but Redlynch mother-of-three Anna Cartaar felt school closures had come at the right time.
“It has been important to keep the community functioning, especially with medical staff who all have kids in schools, but it’s the right time now, because the numbers are spiking,” she said.
“Now is the right time to be taking kids out of school, especially because they are going home to their parents and grandparents. It’s a welcome decision.”
She said the right balance had been struck between weighing the economic need of the state and the health of Queensland school students.
Some Cairns schools had already made contact with parents inquiring about internet connectivity and access to learning devices such as computers and tablets.
The school shutdown comes days after a St Andrew’s Catholic College parent came down with COVID-19 and two Freshwater State School students were placed in isolation.
Until now, the Queensland Government had maintained that schools were safe but allowed parents to pull kids out of class if they deemed the exposure risk too great.
The Premier said that while the advice from the chief health officers was that schools could remain open, they needed to start preparing for a potential closure in the coming weeks.
“This will not be a normal school break. It is vital that parents take responsibility for their children during this time,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“Every Queenslander needs to do their part to limit the spread of coronavirus.”
Single parent Ashley Szenczy took advantage of tiny class sizes and kept her children in school this week.
“If there was any sick kids, you would expect them not to be sent to school anyway, so there would not be transmission of any viruses if there was no sick kids at the school,” she said.
Ms Szenczy’s major concern was for the jobs of kindergarten and school teachers.
But Education Minister Grace Grace said teaching staff would be retained to “prepare for a potential move to students learning from home”.
“We are planning for every eventuality when it comes to this global pandemic,” Ms Grace said.
A Cairns owner of two daycare centres, who asked not to be named, said her facilities would remain open despite the sector facing a “horrific” downturn amid unclear messaging about the future of the industry. She said enrolments of 22 children this week plummeted to four as fear of the pandemic set in.
“Parents are scared. We are hearing over and over: ‘I don’t know what to do, I just want to keep my children safe’,” she said. “They are bunkering down and going into that survival space and I totally respect and understand that.”