During yesterday’s COVID update, Dr Brent Roussin clarified what code orange means for us in the Prairie Mountain Health region, but it still left some questions about what the impact on schools would be.
Mountain View School Division superintendent Dan Ward says government officials told them on Friday that at this point, the level orange restrictions don’t apply to schools in the health region.
“That being said, things could change at any time and if our chief public health officer deemed that this restricted level applied to schools, we have to be prepared for that. So, we’re certainly preparing for that possibility, but at this point in time it’s not having any direct impact on our reopening plans for September.”
Ward acknowledges there’d be a significant impact on students and staff if schools were moved into level orange and remote learning would have to take place.
“There is constant communication with government officials around that possibility and whether or not the orders, if we went into orange for school, would actually result in remote learning for 9-12. But that’s a distinct possibility as stated in the pandemic response document and so we do have contingency plans to essentially go into remote learning for grades 9-12 if we were required to by public health.”
Ward adds that they’d try to provide as much in-class learning as possible for kindergarten to grade 8 students, but they’d have to look at increased social distancing measures and changes to the cohort practices.
On the topic of Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen’s Safe Schools fund announcement yesterday, Ward says they were happy to hear of the additional funding. The superintendent says they’re spending more than they typically would this time of year, to prepare for the school year.
“Everything from additional cleaning supplies to additional PPE, although the province is supplying the masks, but we do have some additional needs for student services areas and other areas within our school system. We’re also looking at staffing and staffing levels, so the additional dollars will help. We’re still waiting for more details from the government in terms of how that will roll out but we’re certainly happy to hear.”
The first shipment of 70,000 disposable masks is on route to MVSD and they should be arriving in the coming days. Ward anticipates them to be an adequate amount for September. MVSD will be receiving cloth masks as well, but that amount hasn’t been determined yet.
Ward also clarified how school divisions will be able to use the government’s Safe Schools fund.
“Schools divisions will be required to spend down the original $48 million prior to accessing the additional $52 million. For MVSD, our COVID-19 savings from spring was approximately $1 million. We anticipate with additional expenditures in staffing and cleaning supplies, will expend that amount and will likely be accessing the additional dollars announced by government yesterday.”
