B.C. students to return to class Monday under new safety measures

Students will be returning to class next week, though with new COVID-19 safety measures in place.

Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside said the province has worked with the Education Steering Commission to come up with additional measures.

“On Monday, schools will be open with reinforced safety measures in place, including the provision of three-layer disposable masks, those are the masks we have been providing in schools throughout the pandemic and we’ve worked to ensure that districts have a good supply of those masks,” said Whiteside.

“There will be measures to reduce crowding, to stagger break times; we will be shifting to virtual assemblies, virtual staff meeting; we will be restricting visitors to schools for the time being.”

While parents and guardians are asked to ensure their children are equipped with their own masks, Whiteside said schools will have a stockpile of disposable masks that students can access if needed.

She noted that masks are an important piece in protecting against COVID-19, saying there will be refresher courses on the importance of masking and proper use Monday. Schools will also hold meetings to review their COVID Safety Plans.

Whiteside also reiterated the importance of students, family members and staff to complete a daily health check prior to going to school and to stay home if they’re showing symptoms to help reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

The Education and Health Ministries are continuing their work to monitor COVID-19 cases in schools, but Whiteside said they are changing how they will keep the public informed on situations in schools.

“As public health has advised us, individual case management and contact tracing is no longer a helpful tool for us in tracking cases in schools. We need a proxy to understand what may be happening with COVID in schools, and so that proxy will be school attendance,” said Whiteside.

“Schools will be monitoring attendance rates closely and will notify public health and the school community if attendance dips notably below typical rates for this time of year. That will trigger a response from public health, which may include investigation, it might include the use of rapid tests, to get a better understanding of what’s happening.”

Parents and guardians are also encouraged to report any positive results from rapid tests to both public health and their schools.

Whiteside added that while the province’s goal is to have in-class learning, she said the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may create a need for temporary shifts to at-home learning for some students in the coming weeks or months.

The return to in-class learning for a majority of students was postponed, which provided schools and school districts to adapt to and implement the aforementioned changes.