Near-normal school year may be ahead
B.C. officials counting on high vaccination rate to loosen COVID-19 measures for students
VICTORIA — Students in B.C. will be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities, like field trips, band concerts and sports tournaments, and will no longer be confined to cohorts when they return to school in September.
The Ministry of Education and B.C.'s provincial health officer are counting on high vaccination rates to allow students to return to “a near-normal school year” this fall.
Dr. Bonnie Henry said she expects a majority of adults and children between the ages of 12 and 17 will have received their second dose of vaccine by September, and that will protect students under the age of 12, who are not yet permitted to receive vaccines.
“Even if young children aren't immunized, they are protected because those around them are immunized,” said Henry. “With vaccine protection, transmission doesn't happen at rates as we have seen in the past.”
The B.C. Teachers Federation is concerned there is no plan for what to do if immunization rates are low in some regions.
President Teri Mooring said “elementary schoolchildren will not be vaccinated at all, and they may not be protected if masks are not worn in classrooms. We do not know what the new variants will do.”
Henry said the schools' mask mandate will likely align with the provincial plan that envisions lifting the order for masks to be worn in indoor public spaces by July 1, assuming a continued decline on COVID cases.
The Education Ministry said it will continue to take measures to prevent the transmission and spread of COVID-19 in schools with $14.4 million in one-time, pandemic-specific funding to support cleaning and disinfecting, hand hygiene for students and staff, improving ventilation and restocking supplies of personal protection equipment.
But Mooring said safety protocols will not be up to the standards that were in place this school year.
“Right now they have to clean high-touch surface areas twice a day. That's going to be reduced to once a day and we're going to have to push to make sure that it happens during the day, not before students get there, or after students leave for the day.”
Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside said $18 million will be targeted to “assess the impacts and deliver resources and recovery strategies” to help students who have fallen behind academically.
Mooring said school districts need to ensure the money is spent on direct services to students.
“That means additional learning support time, additional counselling time, additional education assistant time. Those are the people who directly support student learning and we will be tracking that very closely,” she said.
The teachers' union is disappointed school districts will no longer provide transitional learning, where students keep their seats in class, but can access online learning and return to in-class instruction when they are ready.
“We don't think it needs to be in place for the entire school year, but we think it ought to be in place in September,” said Mooring.