At the end of July, the provincial government announced the school reopening plan and gave school divisions until mid-August to release their individual plans.
Mountain View School Division superintendent, Dan Ward, says they have a draft plan in place based on meetings they’ve had with schools.
“We will be presenting the plan to the board and it will be published no later than August 17th, on our website.”
As of late last week, Ward said they hadn’t met with all of their schools, but had with the larger ones.
With COVID numbers on the rise, the question has been posed whether masks should be mandatory or not. In Alberta and Ontario, masks are mandated for grades 4 to 12 and in Nova Scotia, masks are mandatory in all common areas at schools. Manitoba’s government is still considering whether masks should be required at schools.
Ward says they recognize that staff and students may choose to wear masks and the division would support that decision, even though it’s optional at this point.
“We are following the advice of the Chief Public Health Officer, Dr Roussin, and in the recent publication of restoring safe schools, that was released on July 30th, the province is not making the wearing of non-medical masks mandatory. However, if that should change, we would certainly be communicating with our families, with our staff, and working with whatever plan we need to, to meet any future requirements.”
MVSD trustees and senior admin are meeting today to review the plan.
“As well as reviewing plans for cohorts, social distancing and enhanced cleaning protocols, we will discuss the potential of supporting the wearing of masks for our staff and middle and senior years students, which may include the purchasing of non-medical masks.”
When planning out cohorts for their schools, Ward says particularly in k-8, they’re looking at classroom groupings. He says cohort sizes are supposed to be 75 students or less and their classes are between 15 and about 24 students on average.
“We’re looking to make sure within those class cohorts, we can maintain at least 1 metre of social distancing between students and where we can provide greater social distancing, that we work to do that. So, essentially from K to 8, it’s largely going to be based on your homeroom, your classroom, which will essentially be your main cohort.”
On the topic of bus students, Ward says buses are considered to be separate cohorts and they’re encouraging parents to provide transportation for their children when possible. Ward says bus services will still be provided where needed. The board is looking at requirements within the buses, such as a seating plan where a student would sit alone on a seat, or if that isn’t possible, with a member of their family or school cohort.
Ward says there’ll be an emphasis on education to keep students safe when not in school and they recognize students will have other activities outside of school, such as sports or other events.
He says the important part of maintaining cohorts in schools is to mitigate the risk of spreading COVID-19.
“In the event that anywhere in the province, there is a case that emerges, it will allow public health officials to quickly and effectively do any contact tracing that they need to do to reduce the spread and to provide the services in healthcare needed for anyone who becomes symptomatic.”
Once again, MVSD’s return to school plan will be released no later than next Monday, August 17th.
