B.C.’s Education Minister is making it clear that the province is not ready to get students physically back in class anytime soon.
Rob Fleming says the science around COVID-19 will determine how the Ministry will proceed.
“We haven’t come to a decision. What we’re working on is really focusing on the planning. So that when we do, and if and when we do, announce that, for example, before the end of this school year, we have that right. That we have a complete plan,” Fleming says.
“I think a couple of other jurisdictions have kind of put setting a date ahead of establishing and developing a comprehensive and safe plan. I think that’s backwards. I think what we’re doing is working with all of the education stakeholders, working with the provincial health office to really have a tight health and safety protocol that will consider all of the sorts of questions you will imagine.”
He says those questions are around matters like personal protective equipment, hand-washing stations and how to schedule children being in schools, among others.
That said, Fleming says B.C. has somewhat of advantage, by being able to see how reopening schools will go for places like New Zealand, which will reopen public schools tomorrow.
For students learning at home in B.C., Fleming says the government has provided free WiFi and loaned more than 23,000 computers and tablets to students, to enable them to learn from home.
He says school have been open to a very limited number of students for in-class learning during this pandemic.
“It’s just several thousand of the regular student population, in the public school system anyway, of about 550,00 students. It’s mostly in elementary school settings, the younger children who can’t be home alone, those with parents who are nurses or frontline healthcare workers and they need the school system to be able to report to work to save lives and treat British Columbians,” he says.
“Very small numbers, varies by district. But we hope to expand that, because as we’ve learned during this pandemic, there are a lot of crucially-important points in our economy that help sustain all of us, if we’re to get through this together.”
Meanwhile, Fleming says the government is delivering about 75,000 meals per week to about 16,000 students who do not have secure access to food at home.
