‘Enhanced measures’ in schools the same as they were before Omicron, says Burnaby teacher

A Burnaby teacher says for all the talk about ‘enhanced measures’ to keep schools safe during Omicron, very little has changed in her school since the start of the new year.

The return to school after the holidays was , to January 10, “in order to give public health and B.C. schools additional time to adapt to the impacts of the Omicron variant on communities and schools, and to implement enhanced safety plans to support the continuation of in-class learning.”

According to the provincial government, those measures include requiring schools to reduce crowding during class transition times, hold meetings and assemblies online, and pause extracurricular sports tournaments.

But the teacher—whom the Beacon has agreed to keep anonymous—at a secondary school in the Burnaby School District said on the first day back to school, things were just the same as they had been before the holidays.

“They got on the speaker and they reinforced the expectations that should have been reinforced in September anyway,” she said.

“The cafeteria was still open, cafeteria was full. Bleachers were still open, bleachers were full. The gym was full for lunchtime, for open gym. And there was nobody in there doing half capacity or anything like that. Games are still on between schools. I had three kids leave class early to go to a game.”

The teacher clarified that while tournaments with teams from multiple schools are cancelled, teams from two different schools can still play against each other.

As for crowding between classes, she said that the hallways at her school are just as busy as they have ever been in high schools, ‘with haphazard masking and full density’. There were no staggered start times or recesses at her school.

The singular change that occurred in the teacher’s school was moving staff meetings from in-person to online—and that, she said, was something she had to ‘fight for’ after an in-person staff meeting where people were eating and drinking.

The teacher told the Beacon that there were multiple meetings held during the week that classes were delayed, but without clear direction from the province or the district, very little headway was made.

“I was so frustrated. It was crazy-making. We met and we met and we met. But we got [our district changes] at 4:20pm on Friday,” she said.

“So we met as the health and safety committee. But we couldn’t make any decisions, because we didn’t have the district’s direction. We met twice as a staff committee—and it was basically ‘let’s reinforce what we’ve been doing from September to December.’”

The teacher called the plans that have been laid out ‘reactive’—not aimed at reducing the spread of COVID, but rather focused on reacting to spread once it happens.

The province told school districts earlier this month that they should prepare for ‘functional closures’ in the event that so many staff at a particular school are off sick that the school can’t run anymore.

The teacher said instead, BC could work to implement measures to reduce the spread of COVID—by handing out N95 masks and rapid tests, prioritizing school staff and students for booster vaccinations, and improving ventilation systems. That would make educators feel safer and help to ensure that schools could actually stay open.

“I don’t know any teacher who wants to teach online. What we want is for our students to be safe, and what we want is for our colleagues to be safe,” she said.

“And right now the system is set up for us to get COVID. Because we’re not teaching and learning in COVID-safe spaces. And we could be—that’s the whole point.”

While the province committed earlier this month to expanding its rapid test program to include symptomatic staff and, later on, symptomatic students, the teacher pointed to programs in places like California or even Ontario, where all staff and students will receive 2 rapid tests to begin with and more as supply increases.

On the subject of N95 masks, however—Henry has downplayed their usefulness in ‘low-risk settings’ and emphasized instead the importance of a well-fitting mask.

Ventilation has long been a concern in Burnaby classrooms, with the Burnaby Teachers Association pointing out that upwards of 280 classrooms have had no mechanical ventilation whatsoever.

As the Burnaby Now reports, the Burnaby School District spent the week before classes resumed “scouring North America” for air scrubbers with HEPA filters to fill the gaps in those classrooms.

The shipment of 350 air scrubbers, along with about a hundred smaller units for offices and other facilities, cost the district about $550,000—and while there was no commitment of funding to the district to cover the costs, secretary-treasurer Russell Horswill told a board committee last week there were “ongoing conversations” with the provincial and federal governments to that end.

The province has said it intends to keep schools running in-person for the rest of the year (functional closures aside), and placed a strong emphasis on the mental health benefits of in-person learning.

“We know that face-to-face learning is important for the intellectual, social, and emotional development of students, and that schools are more than just a place of learning,” said Whiteside late last month.

“They also provide important supports for students who may need a bit of extra help, whether that is in the form of mental health services or hot meals or other programs.”

If that’s the case, however, the teacher wants Whiteside to put her money where her mouth is.

“We had to hurry back to the classrooms, because it was in the best interest of the mental health of our children. And yet, we haven’t had one additional program to support mental health. We don’t have any more counsellors in the school to support mental health. We haven’t had any outside resources to support them,” she told the Beacon.

“So that part gets me the angriest. Do not use my students as pawns. Do not tell me that they need to be in schools for their mental health when they feel unsafe in school. That’s harmful to their mental health. And there are no additional supports to help them out. It’s just using them for a talking point and it really bothers me.”