Saskatchewan Education Minister and Deputy Premier, Gordon Wyant, spoke on Aug. 4 about eight areas teachers and staff will be focusing on to keep children safe as they head back to school.
Attempts to go back to school as close to normal as possible does not immediately include mandatory mask use or smaller class sizes, but teachers and staff will organize classes with as little in-school movement and class mixing as possible.
The Horizon School Division has been working on their plans to reopen for the past few weeks, says Director of Education, Kevin Garinger. Each school with have a reopen plan that relates to their own needs and limitations, he says. An important part of school reopening will be the close discussion between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health to ensure children are safe, he says.
“We're trying to mitigate risk as effectively as possible. This is something we are prepared to adjust as we move forward.”
Just because masks are not mandatory at this time does not mean that mask use will be discouraged, he says.
These directions are coming from the Chief Medical Officer, says Garinger, if things change, they will once again follow his advice.
Documents regarding Horizon schools reopening are already available on the division website, says Garinger, and the division will communicate with parents and staff on a continuous basis.
A normal and reassuring environment for students, especially younger ones, is what the government is aiming for, said Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Health Officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab. This as close to a normal classroom environment as possible is dependent on transmissions rates in the province remaining low, as seen in Saskatchewan daycares.
“The plan as outlined today, and as you know designed during July to be released today, takes into account that when you have low transmission, which is what we had in May June, you can safely start school without the use of masks in every grade.”
If schools are seeing high transmission rates, alternative options like mandatory mask use, smaller in-school capacity, and mandatory remote learning will be implemented under the advice of Dr. Shahab.
“Those things may well come to fruition, we may well have to reduce class sizes,” says Wyant. “We may well have to put other things in place to ensure that the school settings are safe, but that's really based on a community transmission model and it will be based on the advice of the chief medical health officer.”
