People, not safety protocol plans, are making a difference

Re: Debate swirls around winter break

I am a teacher in a B.C. secondary school, with a child in elementary school, and I want schools to remain open. However, the repeated chorus of the heroics of “safety protocols” has me frustrated.

School is the safest place for kids. I send my child off each day knowing that school is where he needs to be, and it is relatively safe for him to be there. But my confidence is not in the “safety plans” and “protocols” those higher up the chain keep referencing. My confidence is in the people I know will go above and beyond inadequate protocols, the teachers, support staff and administrators who constantly do what needs to be done in a system that doesn't understand how classrooms actually look, that classrooms of 20 students cannot be physically distanced, that no matter the class size, students working solo at their desks all day is not academically, emotionally, or physically beneficial.

B.C. educators are frustrated by the discrepancy between the safety measures required for the rest of the working world, and us. My colleagues teaching rooms full of 18-year-olds who don't have to wear masks are not exactly heartened by the insistence that everything is fine, that we don't need to require that group of 20 teenagers to mask up because they're not in a house, they're in a school.

I hope it is eventually acknowledged that it is not just safety plans and protocols that are keeping students safe, but people. Things can't be perfect in a pandemic, but can we please recognize the reality of classrooms, and the work that people — not plans — are doing for our kids every day? Those people need plans that value their safety and address reality.

Ashley Roberts, Langley