EAST CENTRAL — The North East School Division (NESD) has surpassed 300 student COVID-19 cases since the semester started in January, a “significant increase” from under 10 in December.
Stacy Lair, NESD’s acting director of education, discussed the numbers with the East Central Recorder on Jan. 24. She attributed the increase to the omicron variant.
The responsibility of reporting the cases to the student’s school relies on the student’s family. Due to the Saskatchewan Health Authority not overseeing the process, Lair said the numbers are a representation of what families do choose to share.
“In a short amount of time we did see that those numbers were significant and also distributed throughout the school division as well. So we do definitely have families reporting from every corner of our division,” Lair said. “We really appreciate the support that they have in staying home when not well, reporting to us so we can send close contact information and hopefully ride this wave out.”
The NESD is maintaining their focus and goal of in-person learning, with virtual distance learning only being used in the case of an outbreak.
Lair said the Division is using a shift in goals from “stopping the spread in schools” that was used earlier in the pandemic to “slowing the spread” to maintain in-person learning – a shift that Lair said can’t be understated.
“Our schools and our mandate definitely was to stop the spread so if we had cases in the classroom or the school it was significantly more rare than it is now and we would sometimes pause in-person learning, all extracurricular and have a different outlook,” Lair said.
“If we had a case in the classroom we often would send the class home for a period of time for online learning… Now with our goal to maintain in-person learning we could have a case in the classroom and notify parents of the close contact but maintain learning in our buildings.”
Precautions include continued enhanced cleaning measures, group cohorting, pause on extracurricular travel visited weekly, and the requirement of disposable masks which are provided by the schools.
“If there is a time when we cannot maintain our staffing numbers, that is a time when we have to switch to virtual learning. Our teachers have some virtual platforms organized for that occasion, but we’re optimistic and hopeful that we can maintain our in-person learning.”
Lair said the NESD is also dealing with staff vacancies, resulting in reassigning staff internally to keep schools open – although buses have been one aspect heavily impacted. The division has had “numerous” unfilled routes throughout the past week.
“Bus drivers are ill with symptomatic regular season colds, flus, and a wave from COVID as a result of some testing – all those things are compiled up on an already low number of sub drivers,” she said.
“We’re always advertising and looking for bus drivers so that’s not a very big sub pool and so that’s a little bit of a concern for us since we know families rely on that service to and from school.”
Another impact with drivers is the cold weather, resulting in even more buses being able to run.
“That’s something that’s impacting attendance, especially elementary attendance we’re seeing it impacted a little bit more right now.”
In response, Lair said the Division is doing what they can to fill the pool with substitute drivers and some families have been driving their own children to school when able.
Over 90 per cent of NESD staff is fully vaccinated, with the remainder using rapid antigen testing on a weekly basis.
