Cambridge Elementary School, which was ordered closed for two weeks by Fraser Health, in Surrey, B.C., on Nov. 15, 2020.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Since the beginning of the pandemic in B.C., there hasn’t been a group more critical of the guidance offered by Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry than teachers.
“The BC Teachers’ Federation [BCTF] has really been critical of our plan for schools and they remain so,” Dr. Henry told me during an interview in December. “Some of the personal attacks on me have been very hard.”
The union’s biggest beef has concerned masks – specifically Dr. Henry’s insistence that children in elementary and high school need not wear them in the classroom if they so choose. The BCTF has said the policy puts the personal safety of teachers at risk.
Dr. Henry has consistently maintained that children and teens are at very low risk of both contracting the disease and spreading it. She has regularly noted that there has been very little dissemination of the virus in schools since students returned to classrooms in September.
Teachers and their union remained unconvinced. They continued to hammer Dr. Henry on the issue, while also complaining about poor ventilation in classrooms and class sizes too large to provide adequate physical distancing.
Recently, the BCTF released a survey of its members that showed almost 80 per cent of teachers believe a face shield or mask should be worn by students in all grades all or most of the time.
Throughout the fall, Dr. Henry mostly ignored calls to change her ways. Among the characteristics the pandemic has revealed about her is a stubborn streak. When she believes she’s right, she sticks to her guns – regardless of how nasty some of the criticism gets.
But perhaps sensing that the teachers’ campaign was not going to end any time soon, Dr. Henry released new guidelines this week around mask use in schools and other areas intended to alleviate some of the BCTF’s angst. Yet, when they were all distilled to their essential form, the new measures aren’t a great change from what was already in place. They were just dressed up to make it appear as if there is more happening than there actually is.
The big, attention-getting policy move is around masks. Are you ready? Instead of being able to take them off once they reach the classroom, middle and high school students (kids 12 and up) now have to wait until they are seated before they can take their masks off, should they so decide.
This won’t apply to elementary school students, who can continue to go maskless if they want.
There are some new guidelines for physical education and music classes. And school districts can access new federal funding to address ventilation system concerns.
While the BCTF applauded some of the measures (and of course took credit for their introduction), many teachers won’t be thrilled that masks or face shields are not mandatory at all times. But unless the science around transmission activity changes, Dr. Henry is unlikely to budge.
“We’ve had very little spread within the school setting and particularly within the classroom,” she told reporters Thursday.
As an example, Dr. Henry pointed to the fact that a student at a high school in Metro Vancouver was diagnosed with the British variant, raising concerns that others might have been infected. However, testing of dozens of students who may have been exposed to the student turned up nothing – a testament, Dr. Henry said, to the protocols in place.
No one studies the COVID-19 numbers harder than Dr. Henry. She knows what she knows. And the data is telling her that districts are not seeing virus transmission when students and teachers are in classrooms and sitting at their desks.
She knows, too, that it’s a challenge to get young people to wear masks all the time, especially the very young. Do teachers really want to be spending their time policing a mandatory mask policy that the provincial health officer doesn’t believe is even necessary?
I don’t think so.
“Schools continue to be a low-risk and safe setting,” Dr. Henry said. “We should not be shaming and blaming children who are wearing masks and not wearing masks. We need to make sure that we have an environment that is healthy and safe for all children and the adults in our school system.”
Seems reasonable to me.
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Gary Mason