N.L. students, staff returning to the classroom after COVID-19 delay
CBC
Students, teachers and school staff across Newfoundland and Labrador are dusting off their lunch bags as they return to the classroom, many of them for the first time in 2022.
Schools across the province went largely online on Jan. 4, thanks to a rise in COVID-19 cases over the holidays.
The date to return to classes was announced during a COVID-19 briefing on Thursday. Premier Andrew Furey said the classroom is the best place for children to learn.
"Our children deserve our best effort, and I'm confident that the hard-working women and men in our schools, the teachers and support staff alike, will deliver, as they have throughout the pandemic," he said at the time.
All students, teachers and school staff will need to complete a second COVID-19 rapid test Tuesday morning to ensure they are negative. The first of the two required tests was to have been taken Saturday.
Students and staff will be required to wear masks at all times in the classroom except when they're eating or engaged in vigorous physical activity. Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald said a three-layer mask is recommended, but students can wear more than one mask as a substitute.
Fitzgerald has said COVID-19 cases will likely rise as schools reopen but said the benefits of children being in school outweigh the risk of the disease.
"We cannot let fear guide our decisions. We have always relied on evidence to guide the way, and it is through a careful review of the evidence that we have assessed the risks and benefits of returning to school," she said last week.
But not every student is returning to school on Tuesday. In-person classes for Grade 8 and 9 students at Menihek High School in Labrador City are suspended because of "staffing pressures," according to a Newfoundland and Labrador English School District (NLESD) memo sent to parents on Monday.
In the letter to parents, the school district said an update will come on Wednesday. CBC News has contacted the NLESD for more details.
In Grand Falls-Windsor, Terri Kelly, a mother of three, is keeping her children home until they're fully vaccinated because her youngest child is immunocompromised and also has asthma.
"At this particular time, and with my son having health risks, I just felt that it wasn't safe to send them back to school just yet," Kelly told CBC Radio's Newfoundland Morning on Tuesday.
"I've been told by his doctors that he is at very high risk if he were to catch COVID."
Kelly said she home-schooled her children last year when vaccines weren't available for younger populations. Her youngest child is due for his second dose of vaccine by mid-March, at which point Kelly said she feels it will be safer to send all three of her children back to school.