VANCOUVER -- Frank Cabrone hadn't checked his email when he arrived at St. Francis Assisi elementary school this morning with his 11-year-old son. He found the gates locked, and the Catholic school closed after a parent of a student there tested positive for COVID-19.
A nearby Catholic high school, Notre Dame Secondary, is also closed as a precaution because students and staff often share spaces with St. Francis Assisi.
"This morning was quite a surprise, knowing that this school has been infected with the coronavirus, which makes me feel quite unsafe," said Cabrone. He's upset health authorities won't release more information on who the infected parent is.
"It would be fair that they would let us know who the parent or the kid is that is infected because then I can go have my kid checked," Cabrone said. "It might be in the same grade as my son or my son might even play with him, who knows? People got the right to know for their own safety."
Catholic Independent Schools Vancouver Archdiocese's Lesya Balsevich cant release details of the positive case, telling CTV News their "information is that the student or children of the family are in isolation and have also been tested." She's not sure if the parent who tested positive has recently been inside the school.
Balsevich says the timing of the closure, just three days before spring break was set to begin, is fortunate.
"It is helpful in order to get the school situated to be able to put a plan together to do a real significant deep clean and to sanitize the school."
As for what that deep clean will look like, Balsevich said the school will look to recommendations from the province's health ministry.
Meanwhile, Surrey's Coast Meridian Elementary issued a notice on its website saying someone in the school's community "has tested positive for COVID-19." The notice said, however, that the school has not yet confirmed the diagnosis with health authorities.
"In our current context, and exercising significant caution, we are closing Coast Meridian today and we are dispatching a deep cleaning team to the school to begin a full and thorough cleaning," the notice said, without indicating when the school would reopen.
On Monday, a school on the North Shore closed for the week after learning that a "close contact" of someone in the school community has COVID-19.
Collingwood School said the person infected with the virus is "not a student, family member, or staff member" of anyone who attends either of the West Vancouver school's campuses.
"While Vancouver Coastal Health's regional communicable disease control advises that the risk is limited, we have made the decision to close the school for spring break out of an abundance of caution in order to deep clean our buildings and safeguard our community," headmaster Lisa Evans said in an email.
Over the weekend, two school communities in Surrey received letters over the weekend about incidents involving people with the virus.
A letter was sent to parents and guardians of students at Serpentine Elementary School on Sunday, advising them someone now diagnosed with the virus had been inside the school gym as part of a community-use rental.
The school was deep-cleaned over the weekend as a result, but classes were still in session by Monday.
Parents and guardians at Sullivan Heights Secondary School also received a letter from Fraser Health on Sunday informing them someone with a now-confirmed case of COVID-19 is a member of the school community.
It's not known if it's a student or staff member, but health officials said the risk at Sullivan Heights was low because the person wasn't showing symptoms while at school.