‘Kids like my son always fall through the cracks’
Since the pandemic began, Sara Atkins has been working nights, weekends and when her four-yearold son, Sawyer, is asleep. When his school reopens in September, she will continue that gruelling schedule, caring for her special needs son at home during the day and working around him.
Like many parents of children with special needs and compromised immune systems, Atkins does not plan to send her son to school in the fall. And, like others, she feels the province has failed to take sufficient measures to make sure children like her son are safe in the plan it announced this week to reopen schools.
“Unfortunately, kids like my son always fall through the cracks. Special needs children are always considered last, if at all, so I think they have let us down.”
Atkins’ son Sawyer attends Crystal Bay, a special education school in the city’s west end.
Her son, who has severe intellectual disability and physical impairment, is already in a small class. But Atkins said she is uncertain how the school board will protect them from possible infection when they move through the school or interact with therapists and drivers and there is not much information for parents at this point.
Among her questions is how will the room where her son spends much of his time be cleaned. “The reality is a lot of kids drool and put things in their mouths.”
She said she thinks it is good to have children in school five days a week with proper precautions. But, at this point, the risk to her son is just too high.
“Quite honestly, if he got COVID-19, I don’t think he would survive.”
In past winters, she said, a cold or flu has sent him to hospital for multiple days.
Atkins is also concerned about how her son will get access to the many therapies he needs if he is not at school.
Atkins is not the only parent who is planning to keep her special needs child home in the fall.
Kim McLeod, the Ottawa mother of a medically complex son who died in 2016, said around three-quarters of people in a group she organized for parents of children with physical disabilities have said they will not send their children back to school because of concerns about their safety.
“It is disappointing that the government has made this broadstrokes decision and it doesn’t address a unique population of children with special needs,” she said. “Those families are still in lockdown and will continue to be and nobody has addressed anything for this subgroup.”
Among families’ concerns are that there are so many details yet to be ironed out.
University of Ottawa epidemiologist Raywat Deonandan said he is not convinced that the rate of transmission of COVID -19 is actually lower in children than adults, as some studies have concluded.
He points out that children are more likely to be asymptomatic and therefore less likely to be tested because they don’t have symptoms. For that reason, it has been difficult to know accurately when children are spreading COVID-19. He also points out that a lot of the studies coming to that conclusion were done when schools were closed.
Deonandan said the province should have spent money to reduce class sizes among younger students and improve physical distancing. That, he said, is key to preventing the spread of infection, according to modelling.
Deonandan also said he believes younger children should be encouraged to wear masks.
“I think we underestimate their ability to do these things.”
He said two keys to keeping children safe in school are keeping case numbers low in the community and smaller class sizes.