Nunavut attendance rates 'lower than normal': Education minister

Nunavut schools may have reopened to students on Jan. 24, but not all students were present in class. 

Education minister Pamela Gross said, for the week of Jan. 24 to 28, schools throughout the territory saw "lower than normal" school attendance — ranging between 21 and 29 per cent lower than the average attendance rate. 

Gross suggested a few reasons why students had not all returned to their classroom, though she said she does encourage all students to go to school if they can. 

"There could be a number of reasons for the lower rates of attendance, including students who are at home isolating or staying home due to COVID-19 symptoms, or also staying home due to fear," she said. 

Gross said she has heard from parents who are worried about cases of COVID-19 spreading in their community, but she is hopeful that "we can get back to some normalcy sometime in the near future."

"I understand the frustrations that parents may face at this time, but I would say that it's best … for the parent to reach out directly to their teacher," said Gross.

In the meantime, Health Minister John Main encouraged parents to take concrete steps to keep their children safe in school this semester. 

"We understand that it's a very stressful time," he said. "I just want to encourage parents who do have that concern for their child's health to please have your child vaccinated for COVID-19."

At a news conference Tuesday morning, Nunavut's Chief Public Health Officer Michael Patterson said it was "impossible" to know exactly how many cases of COVID-19 had been reported in Nunavut schools. 

"Oftentimes, when we do contact tracing around classes, we find that students who attend a class together will [also] socialize together, and teasing out whether the transmission happened in the classroom or at those social gatherings is impossible," he said. 

At the moment, students who are identified as a "high-risk contact" of someone with COVID-19 must isolate — and student-to-student transmission is generally considered high-risk — but those students' families generally do not need to isolate as well. 

"If the student has been exposed but is not symptomatic and has not been diagnosed with COVID, the risk of their family spreading it further is quite small," said Patterson.