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“While school doesn’t look the same this year, we are all committed to ensuring all students continue to learn and are fully supported. We have heard from students, families and staff that being in the classroom — connected to teachers and classmates — has been invaluable,” ministry staff wrote in a statement.
The government has hired nearly 1,000 teachers with federal and provincial COVID-19 relief funds, and it has purchased millions of pieces of personal protective equipment to help keep schools safe, according to the ministry.
Still, some parents like Mary Butterfield, who has a daughter in Grade 5 in Kelowna, say they consider themselves lucky their children haven’t been exposed to COVID-19 in their schools.
Butterfield said her daughter’s teacher has been great and has had their pupils washing their hands regularly. But she said her daughter is among the few who choose to wear their masks in class, and the lack of a provincial mask mandate in school frustrates her.
“The province’s approach of downloading the responsibility for public health to the individual … means that the responsibility for keeping people safe actually falls to teachers. And I don’t want my daughter’s teacher policing the safety of his classroom as his number 1 priority, I want him to be able to teach,” Butterfield said.
Butterfield said if she had the ability not to work she would pull her kids out of care and keep them home, not because the school isn’t doing its part, but because she believed many other people in the community were not taking the pandemic seriously, including those mandated to enforce COVID-19 restrictions.
mrobinson@postmedia.com
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