Plan to reopen schools in May worries parents, teachers
Some express concern children could bring coronavirus home
The Quebec government’s decision to reopen elementary schools and daycares in May has drawn criticism from parents and questions from worried teachers, but some experts say the decision makes sense.
Though attendance won’t be mandatory, elementary schools and daycares outside the Montreal area will reopen on May 11. Just over a week later, on May 19, they will reopen in Montreal.
High schools, CEGEPS and universities will stay closed until September because older students can more easily learn via online classes and other resources, Premier François Legault said at his Monday news conference.
Legault stressed that his government isn’t pressuring Quebecers to send their children back to school.
However, a cacophony of concern greeted Legault’s announcement. Some parents said they wouldn’t send their kids to school because they are afraid of them bringing the coronavirus home. Others pointed to the difficulty of social distancing among groups of young elementary-school students and children in daycare.
“I’m not taking the risk,” said Nadia Wiseman Azoulay, mother to an eight-year-old son.
Wiseman said she was worried about the possibility of the virus spreading among the children and won’t be sending her son to class on May 19.
Most parents seem to be opposed to the reopening of schools, according to Katherine Korakakis, president of the English Parents Community Association. Hundreds of parents had commented in her Facebook group or sent messages expressing their anger with the Quebec government for moving too quickly.
But parents whose children have special needs generally were pleased with the decision, Korakakis added. They sent her private messages away from the eyes of judgmental social media users, Korakakis said, explaining the difficulties they have taking care of their children all day, every day.
“They say things like: ‘I need help; I can’t do this. I need schools to be open,’ ” Korakakis said.
Unions and organizations that represent teachers, daycare educators and other school staff also expressed concern with the government’s decision.
“It’s very concerning when you have lists and lists of questions and no answers,” said Heidi Yetman, president of the Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers. “And yet in two weeks they’re going to be back in the classroom.”
At least one group praised the government’s decision.
The Conseil du Patronat du Quebec, which represents employers, rejoiced. Children would be able to learn more efficiently at school, the organization wrote in a news release, and working parents also would benefit.
Despite the concern many parents feel, some experts say the decision to open schools makes sense. Dr. Caroline Quach-thanh, a pediatric infectious diseases consultant, medical microbiologist and epidemiologist, said a slow, non-mandatory opening of schools was “completely warranted.”
The virus isn’t going away, she said. A vaccine likely won’t be available for many months and society is going to have to adapt.
“In that context — at one point in time you have to reopen schools and other areas of society, otherwise people are going to go crazy,”
Quach-thanh said.
Though COVID-19 data is incomplete, limited evidence suggests children do not spread the virus easily. Chinese researchers, Quach-thanh explained, have learned children rarely spread the virus to their family members. She also cited a now-renowned French case — published this month in Clinical Infectious Diseases — which analyzed the spread of the virus around one boy who contracted it. He had contact with 172 people, but none of them caught it. Even the boy’s siblings were safe.
Dr. Matthew Oughton, an infectious disease specialist at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, said the decision to slowly reopen schools was “probably the path of least harm.”
“Any interaction you have is going to come with some risk,” he said, “but staying at home completely in a bubble for several weeks is also a risky thing, just in a different way.”
Oughton has children of elementary-school age. He’s going to send them back to school, provided he’s convinced the government’s plan is reasonable and based on sound science.
“If the government were to say: ‘OK, we’re opening the schools tomorrow, everyone come back’ — that kind of plan, I would not be OK with,” he said. “But everything I’ve seen so far says to me that they are going to be doing this in a cautious and measured fashion and that’s the only sensible approach.”