Concerns remain for teachers with school year approaching

Roughly half of the students between the ages of 5-11 have received all of their vaccine doses.

CITYnews halifax \ Tyler Dunne

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With school returning just around the corner, so are some of the concerns from teachers. 

Ryan Lutes, president of the Nova Scotia Teacher Union, says the concerns remain from the previous school year – such as ventilation, staff shortages and vaccine uptake.

While vaccination rates remain high between the 12-19 age group, only around half of students between the ages of 5-11 have received all their vaccine doses.

“That’s certainly an issue for us and an issue for parents and kids,” Lutes told CityNews.

“I think that’s where public health can  take a stronger lead on it and make sure that we are doing everything we can to get kids as vaccinated as possible.”

Talking to reporters, Dr. Robert Strang said, “I am concerned that only half, roughly half of the 5-11-year-olds had two doses of vaccine.”

“That’s a choice that parents need to make, so to me, that would be the starting point – are you getting your child up to date with vaccines and then, when they are eligible for their booster, getting the booster,” Strang continued.

Lutes says ventilation is another issue the union has been trying to address since the start of the pandemic, with some classrooms still lacking mechanical ventilation.

“That is something that we’ve been calling for, and because we all know that’s one of the layers of protection and I think we could have done a lot more surrounding ventilation,” Lutes told CityNews.

“And if we did that then maybe there wouldn’t be as many people kind of focused on masks and as anxious going back to school without masks if we had worked harder to get the ventilation sorted out.”

Lutes says the staffing shortages last year heavily impacted schools and the educational delivery for kids.

The absence of teachers due to COVID-19 forces other teachers to fill in the gaps, but by filling in elsewhere, it detracts from their time to do preparatory work and marking, taking away from their ability to put their best efforts towards instruction, Lutes explained.

“So that’s something that certainly our members are still worried about; that’s still something that the union is, that we’re, constantly advocating for,” Lutes said.

“It’s something that we can’t forget about because if we forget about it, it’s just going to get worse, and it’s going to have a pretty significant impact on folks.”

The union says concerns from the previous school year still linger and believe the direction from Dr. Strang and Public Health could be more forward.

“When he’s talking, I think people listen, and we’ve seen in the last few months public health really taking a back [foot] on things, and we don’t have as much information around COVID numbers, and you know case data – we just don’t have as much information in general from Public Health,” Lutes said.

Strang says Public Health still recommends students to wear masks in school whenever possible, especially in large groups like while sitting in class or riding the bus.

But, Strang says, one of the most critical details for parents and students to understand is deciding to stay home while sick.

“They need to stay home and not just go off to school and arrange for testing for COVID as appropriate cause that’s very important – keeping people who are ill out of our schools, out of our classrooms,” Strang said.

The mandate to self-isolate has been removed, but Stang says the mandates were never really enforced and relied on people doing the right thing.

“The obligation sits with family and individuals, so if I’m sick, I need to stay home,” Stang said.

“I get it that there are lots of things we need to work at to build more supports for families, parents who have to go to work and struggle for child care, and people with financial reasons – those are other parts of policy work that needs to be looked at but fundamentally the message to Nova Scotians is that if you’re sick stay home.”

While concerns remain, Lutes says he is cautiously optimistic about the upcoming school year.

“I think most teachers are,” Lutes said.

“I think there is a little bit of optimism from some folks that this is going to be a better year, but I just hope we’re not putting all our eggs in one basket/let’s not kind of forget about COVID and not take the steps we need to be taking.”