B.C. braces for return to in-person learning amid Omicron wave

As students and teachers prepare to return to in-person learning on Monday, many parents are being forced to make a difficult decision: Keep their child at home or drop them off at school?

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has been reluctant to close schools and require students to learn online again, as they were required to do in spring 2020.

Speaking at a news conference last week, the province’s top doctor emphasized the desire to keep kids in classrooms as much as possible.

“We know schools are safe. They’re the best and safest place for our children and they are essential for their social and emotional development as well as intellectual development,” Henry said Tuesday.

She said keeping kids in school is among the highest priorities in the province right now, and that doing so would require flexibility from all, including parents and teachers.

British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan are the only provinces heading back to the classroom this week. The rest of country will temporarily switch to remote learning until at least Jan. 17, a decision some B.C. parents say this province should have made weeks ago.

“I can’t understand why they would even attempt this,” said Mollie Kaye, a parent in Victoria.

Kaye told CTV News she will not be sending her daughter back to the classroom on Monday, as she believes there will be functional closures by the end of the week.

“Anyone who sends their kids back to school in these first few days is basically saying, ‘I agree to be one of the stats that leads to the functional closure,’” Kaye said. “I think this is going to be one of the moments where we look back and say, ‘My government told me it was safe and I had no idea what might happen,’ in terms of long-term post viral consequences of this variant.”

Community transmission is at an all-time high across B.C. The latest numbers from the province on Friday showed there are currently 33,184 active, lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in B.C., an all-time high since the pandemic began.

That number is almost certainly an undercount, however, given that the provincial testing system has reached its maximum capacity.

According to the latest report from the independent BC COVID-19 Modelling Group, the actual number of active cases in B.C. is likely around 250,000.

At a news conference on Friday, Henry and B.C.’s Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside announced new safety measures for schools, including staggered breaks, virtual assemblies and a three-layer mask requirement. However, the current mask mandate has exemptions, according to Surrey teacher and elected member of the Surrey Teachers Association Lizanne Foster.

“Lots of parents have been using those exemptions. So you have students coming into class who are refusing to wear a mask,” said Foster. “It’s exhausting. It’s just exhausting. The sad thing is that there are solutions.”

Foster said there is exceptional anxiety among teachers and parents, especially parents who have immunocompromised children.

“Last year, we had far more structure that would make students who are medically vulnerable safer,” she said. “We had cohorts so teachers were only exposed to two groups of students a day. Mask-wearing was also taken more seriously.”

Right now, only 40 per cent of children aged five to 11 have been vaccinated with one dose. Foster said that number needs to be higher and boosters need to be better prioritized for teachers.

“We also have overcrowded, badly ventilated classrooms,” she added. “We need to find better ways to filter the air.”

“We can make schools absolutely safe. Right now, they’re not.”

Staff and students at BCIT will also be returning to campus on Monday.

More than 3,000 students have signed a petition to delay in-person learning. 

“A lot of other universities are just completely online or partially online for the safety of the students; we think BCIT should be doing the same,” said Hailey Schoenhials, a student at BCIT who supports the petition.

A shipment of rapid tests is expected to arrive on the West Coast this week, and many of the sought-after tests will be designated for B.C.’s schools.

The COVID-19 tests will be used for symptomatic teachers and staff, Henry said.

They’ll primarily be used to help officials understand where outbreaks and clusters are happening, so health officials can support B.C. schools.