SSRCE School Bus. Photo Ed Halverson

Parents are upset schools are not telling them about COVID in classrooms.

As public health moves away from contact tracing, parents must rely on each other to find out if their kids have been exposed in schools.

One of those parents is Matthew Verge whose two stepchildren aged seven and eight attend Centre Scolaire du la Rive Sud in Cookville.

Verge became concerned when he learned one of his children’s close friends contracted COVID but no one from the school let his family know.

“We not only didn’t receive a notification that there was a case,” said Verge. “We didn’t receive a notification that we wouldn’t be receiving notifications.”

Verge says the school community is tight and parents do a good job of informing each other what is happening in classes but argues it shouldn’t be up to parents to contact each other about a potentially serious illness.

“I think it’s doubtful that a parent would end up just simply not knowing that there was a COVID case because there’s such a strong network. But that said, it’s not their responsibility,” said Verge. “And frankly, you could be the most involved parent that you could possibly be and you still wouldn’t have every contact information of every person.”

Verge’s concern is echoed across Nova Scotia.

Stacey Rudderham speaks for Nova Scotia Parents for Public Education, a Facebook group of over 20,000 parents from all over the province.

Her members are angry that school administrators are ordered not to share information about COVID cases in their schools with parents.

Rudderham understands the need to protect people’s privacy but says if a parent is willing to come forward and reveal their child has COVID to prevent classmates from contracting or spreading the virus, school officials should be allowed to get that message out to other parents.

“The message would be clear and it would be correct and people would feel like they were being informed. That’s the big thing,” said Rudderham. “We know from lots of experience that parents just; they want to be informed.”

Verge says that information is important for families to have when dealing with immunocompromised relatives.

“Do we not send them to school, do they never see their grandmother, do we risk the kids getting COVID themselves? Supposedly it’s okay with kids, but it’s not always. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal to just tell us,” said Verge.

No one from Public Health or the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development replied for a request to comment on whether the policy preventing administrators from contacting parents would be reviewed.

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Dr. Robert Strang. Photo Communications Nova Scotia

The province’s top doctor says staff and students are welcome to share their COVID status, but schools won’t aid in getting the word out.

Dr. Robert Strang says the omicron variant is so widespread that there is little value in providing contract tracing.

“The risks of relying on being notified and then the false assumption that if you’re not notified, you’re somehow not at risk just don’t work anymore with the widespread of omicron,” said Strang.

While he recognizes the change is a significant psychological shift that will cause anxiety for some staff and parents, Strang says previous attempts at contact tracing have shown they may cause more harm than good.

“What we learned when we were doing this close contact tracing in November and December, particularly, was that doing that close contact tracing and then the subsequent isolation of people who were identified classroom contacts was incredibly disruptive to our school system and to families. So, we’re not going to be isolating people anymore.”

During Wednesday’s COVID briefing, Strang was asked why school officials have been told they are not permitted to share COVID cases.

Strang says it’s up to individual parents and teachers if they want to share their own personal information and schools would not distribute that information to protect the privacy of the people involved.

But he insisted reports of school officials being told not to share information is untrue.

“In fact, that is misinformation that’s been put out there by various groups that there’s somehow a ban or a gag order. That’s not true,” said Strang. “However, the school system and individual teachers need to be aware that there’s legislation that governs how somebody else’s personal health information is actually disclosed.”

Strang was provided with a copy of a letter issued to parents by a principal in which the principal says they have been specifically told they are not permitted to share COVID information with the school community.

Strang responded that is not the message that has come out of discussions he has had with education officials over the past few days.

“That has been clarified and that is not actually the appropriate phrasing and language that has been most recently shared with school administration.”

How the message has been clarified was not identified as the update was cut off abruptly following Dr. Strang’s response.

A series of follow up correspondence with the South Shore Regional Centre for Education, the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and the Department of Health and Wellness all confirm the information provided by the principal was accurate.

The official policy from the education department echoes earlier comments from Dr. Strang that teachers and parents are free to share their own personal COVID information if they choose, but school administration will not make that information public.

The latest COVID numbers from public health show three more Nova Scotians have died, 11 people have been admitted to hospital and five have been discharged.

Strang says while public health is moving away from rigorous contact tracing, how people prevent the spread of COVID-19 remains the same.“The message for everybody is get vaccinated, follow all the personal protective measures, especially and if you’re sick with new cold and flu-like symptoms stay home,” said Strang. “That message doesn’t change just because somebody has been a close contact.”

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Nova Scotia Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Zach Churchill announces $21.5 million in at home technology support via Zoom. (Screenshot)

Nova Scotia is buying computers for students and upgrading school wireless networks in order to continue to educate kids through COVID-19.

Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Zach Churchill announced $21.5 million from the federal Safe Return to Class Fund will be used to address concerns raised by students, teachers and parents about online and computer access during the provincial lockdown this spring.

Churchill said close to 30,000 respondents submitted their experience with at-home education.

“It was clear that the experience was different from school to school, teacher to teacher, from home to home. So this year we’ve brought in some standards for at-home learning for teachers and support staff,” said Churchill. “We have guidelines in place to help direct them in terms of how they approach their learning. We have enhanced capabilities now with students having access to technology and also teleconferencing as well, for students who don’t have access to the internet.”

Churchill said the department has already secured the purchase of 24,000 Chromebooks. The province has received 3,000 of those and the remaining 21,000 units are expected in December. They also hope to buy another 8,000 Chromebooks in the new year.

The education minister said it will be up to the regional centres across Nova Scotia to determine where they will be needed.

“Our regions have done work to identify which households, which students, don’t have access to the tech and those will be the folks that receive the technology. This is about ensuring that there’s not a digital divide in our education system, that all of our students have equitable access to the tools they need to learn and succeed even in an at-home learning environment,” said Churchill.

The province is also improving wireless connectivity and system stability at schools through the purchase and installation of new hardware including: firewalls, fibre-optic lines, servers and wireless routers.

Ten new full-time positions are being created to install and facilitate the upgrades.

The education minister said the majority of schools in Nova Scotia do have access to high-speed internet and those with slower speeds will be the target of the upgrades.

For students trying to complete their studies without high-speed access at their homes, Churchill offered a couple of alternatives to submit their work for evaluation.

“One option includes being able to utilize, by appointment, the school facility, even during a blended learning situation where they will have access to a safe learning space with internet and materials,” said Churchill.

The education minister said the program piloted in the spring, which allowed students to submit their work through a USB stick will also be available and those students will have access to devices with USB capabilities.

Should the province need to move to a blended model that would see some students move to at-home learning the biggest change will have nothing to do with technology.

“Everyone will be graded,” said Churchill. “That’s different from last year. We know that helps with motivation in terms of staying engaged with school work, even at home.”

The education minister said figuring out ways to educate in a pandemic has forced everyone to revaluate how things are done.

“That’s the silver lining here is this pandemic has forced us to take a real look at our tech capacity and assess who has access to digital learning tools and who doesn’t,” said Churchill. “I don’t see us moving back from this. In fact, I see us enhancing our ability to utilize technology in the learning environment at school and at home for the long run.”

Churchill said the upgrades have already begun and he hopes the work will be completed in every school in the province by the end of the school year.

Reported by Ed Halverson 
E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson