Special-needs schools face unique pandemic obstacles
Students struggling to grasp why they need to follow public health measures. Physical distancing being nearly impossible, with staff often needing to calm students down with a hug or help them eat.
Some have negative reactions to seeing their teachers in masks and face shields, sometimes trying to rip them off. Others close in on themselves, confused by the upheaval in their routine.
While operating amid the COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult for all schools, it's been particularly challenging for those catering to students with special needs.
After being forced to close its high school campus for more than a week following a string of COVID-19 cases, one special-education school in Montreal, Peter Hall School in St-laurent, is scheduled to reopen Tuesday.
The closure was brought on by a domino effect caused by five students testing positive within 24 hours.
Between personnel needing to isolate after being in contact with the infected students and others already off work due to possible COVID-19 cases in their families, the campus was short roughly 30 per cent of its staff.
“There's a certain limit I can't surpass to ensure both students and staff are safe. We hit that limit,” said the school's general director, Jean Laliberté. “We were left with no other choice.”
The campus's 250 students were moved to online learning during the closure, placing a burden on parents. The school's elementary campus, on the other hand, has remained open.
Laliberté stressed the closure was in no way a reflection of the work staff has done to limit the spread of the virus. Employees have worked tirelessly, he said, to find the right balance between providing the hands-on care students need and staying safe during the pandemic.
“We rightly talk a lot about how difficult it is in the health sector right now,” Laliberté said, “but we're not far from it.”
Students at the school require specialized care, including for intellectual disabilities, psychopathological disorders and autism spectrum disorders. Many use wheelchairs, are non-verbal and require one-on-one care throughout the day.
To meet their needs, the school employs teachers, patient attendants, nurses, special education technicians and occupational therapists. Finding qualified replacements has always been a challenge, but the pandemic has made it worse.
When the school used to put out calls for patient attendant positions, it would receive up to 25 applicants at a time. Now they trickle in one by one, a result Laliberté attributes to the exhaustion and shortages felt across the health network.
When he decided to close the campus, Laliberté said, it's because he simply couldn't find enough replacement staff to stay open and know he wasn't putting people at risk.
“For us to come to that decision, it's really because we had tried everything,” Laliberté said. “We want to have our students here in school. We know they progress more when they're here.”
For the union representing personnel at the school, the closing also speaks to the need for more testing in schools and to prioritizing teachers during the vaccine rollout.
In an interview, Catherine Beauvais-st-pierre, president of l'alliance des professeures et professeurs de Montréal, said the closing is further evidence the government should be allocating more pandemic resources to the school network.
The union represents 240 staff members at Peter Hall.
Beauvais-st-pierre said if rapid testing was used at the school, perhaps the isolation times for both students and staff could be reduced, avoiding future closings.
She also suggested those working in special education settings should be next in line for the vaccine after seniors and health-care workers, given the challenging conditions they face daily.
“They're really on the front lines,” Beauvais-st-pierre said. “It's incredibly important work and it's a challenge in normal times, but even more so now.”