Lack of government guidance for schools causing chaos: STF president

The Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation (STF) is warning of confusionas some schooldivisions in the province have been left scrambling to decide how best to protect their staff and students from COVID-19.

"It's really kind of a chaotic time and there really doesn't seem to be a firm plan," said Patrick Maze, president of the STF.

Maze said the provincial government has delegatedthe responsibility related to pandemicplanning onto individual school divisions and he said that's resulted in confusion and a mix of responses even within the same city.

In Regina, the public school division moved its high school students to remote learning Wednesday, March 24 and intends to move their elementary school students on March 29.

The Regina Catholic School Division (RCSD) had initially planned on moving all students to remote learning starting March 29. However, high-school students attending Miller Comprehensive High School, Dr. Martin Leboldus High School, Archbishop M.C. O'Neill Catholic High School and Michael A. Riffel High Schoolare moving to Level-4 remote learning effective Thursday, March 25.

"Saskatchewan seems to want to keep schools open at all costs with the exception of when it gets really bad. The problem is it's really bad in Regina right now. It's too late for [those] school divisions," Maze said.

Twylla West, a spokesperson for the RCSD, said board trustees felt a sense of urgency to move up the date for remote learning after the province announced new public health measures to curb the spread of coronavirus variants of concern in the city. She said the day for elementary students hasn't changed to give families time to line-up child care.

As of March 24, Regina currently has 844 of the province's 1565 activeCOVID-19 cases. It also has 824 of the 954 variants of concern identified through screening in the province and 313 of the 360 variants of concern that have completed genome sequencing.

Earlier this week, the province announced new regulations for Regina and surrounding communities to slow the spread of COVID in the city, including: closing restaurants and event centres as of March 28 and issuing an immediate travel advisory asking people to not travel to and from Regina for non-essential reasons.

There's lots of teachers and other people in the city who work in neighbouring communities and they haven't been given firm directions on whether they should continue or not.- Patrick Maze

Maze said the lack of a cohesive response across all school divisions has left some teachers wondering if they are able to continue working under the new Public Health orders.

"There's lots of teachers and other people in the city who work in neighbouring communities and they haven't been given firm directions on whether they should continue or not," Maze said.

Some parents worried about in-person learning after variants rise

After watching Regina's coronavirus variants of concern increase, Marc Spoonerand his partner Karen decided to switch their two children, in Grade 2 and in pre-kindergarten at cole Monseigneur de Laval, to remote learning.

"We decided to keep them home to protect them, but also to protect the other kids and the teachers and all the educational staff that are working there," Spooner said.

Spooner isa professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina. He said the government needs to provide a consistent plan for schools across the province.

"We'd like to see maybe a little bit more leadership from the provincial government and some more uniform guidelines that perhaps all the schools should be switching toremote learning to provide some kind of circuit breaker."

Regina Public Schools (RPS) said it is giving its teachersthe option to work from home during the move to remote learning, though other essential staff need to stay in-person.

"School administrators, facilities staff and some division office staff will continue to report to their workplaces," an RPS spokesperson said in a statement.

Students in both of Regina's school divisions are scheduled to return to in-person learning April 12.