Published: Wednesday, 12 January 2022 07:31 Written by Maury Wrubleski
Everyone involved in education, locally and provincially, is working at max capacity to navigate the latest challenges wrought by COVID.
The rapid spread of the omicron variant of COVID 19 has sent officials in health care and education back to the drawing board in some ways when it comes to limiting the spread of the highly contagious virus. The government’s recent changes to testing and self-isolation protocols have had an impact in schools. As schools are a week into the winter return and as cases mount, school divisions have all hands pitching in to navigate the rapidly changing environment.
For Director of Education for the Horizon School Division Kevin Garinger, it means communication efforts with students, staff and families are redoubling in an effort to keep all informed. At the heart of its strategy is to have parents and students use rapid test kits distributed through the schools and at Saskatchewan businesses and agencies.
“What we’ve encouraged families to do is to use those rapid tests on a regular basis, and if they have a positive result, to report that to the school,” says Garinger. “We can then address it by communication through my office to the families within that school.”
The Division continues to work on communication strategies around changes to the public health order. With students and staff isolation times being dependent on their vaccination status, the Division is asking all to adhere to the orders. The prevalence of the virus in communities means there is an increase in students and staff being away from schools. Garinger leans on the idea that everyone is responsible for public health and everyone needs to do their part.
Decisions on COVID response for schools haven’t been made in a vacuum, notes Garinger. While the Provincial Response Planning Team that oversaw the collaboration around school responses has dissolved, Garinger says that divisions have been in constant touch with health officials, and a new entity is set to continue work on school response strategies.
“The Business Continuity Response Team has been recently established. That team is made up of members from our sector as well as staff members from our offices. There’s been a team established of Directors and Superintendents, and two of my staff members are going to be part of that.”
The Response Team is dedicated to bringing together agencies and resources from education to facilitate communication and quick action where time is a key. The initiative takes work done earlier in the pandemic to plan responses and kicks it up to a provincial level.
“The Team will involve information that will go to health and some other sectors where necessary, but its main focus is within the education sector.”
Parents and students are asked to familiarize themselves with the current guidelines to self-monitoring, testing, and self-isolation addressed in the recently released flowchart below.
Of course, there are other considerations such as extra-curricular activities, student and staff absenteeism, and reporting case numbers. Discover Humboldt will continue its conversation with Director Kevin Garinger on plans to support families through this challenging stage of the pandemic.
