(Montreal) Unions and school principals denounced Thursday the announcement of maintaining the return to class on Monday in elementary and secondary schools in Quebec.
Posted at 6:31 a.m.
Updated at 9:13 p.m.
The teachers are “dismayed”, indicates for example the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE) which accuses the government of “willful blindness”.
The union does not digest that Quebec is abandoning the strategy of screening by PCR test, tracing and isolation of infectious students, to prefer an approach based on rapid tests.
“The new isolation rules mean that it is no longer possible to close a class or a school,” said the president of the FAE, Sylvain Mallette, in a press release. However, [le gouvernement] cannot deny that the school network generated more than 50% of the cases of infection listed. ”
The Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers (APEQ), affiliated with the CSQ, says it reacted “with amazement and great concern” to the government’s decision given the sharp increase in COVID-19 cases due to the progression of the Omicron variant.
She says she believes that the new case management protocols in schools risk contributing to “making our schools the main incubator for the transmission of COVID-19 in the community”, which would put at risk “the health teachers who are on the front line, their students and their families”.
“In a context of shortage, this decision, far from valuing education personnel, risks on the contrary demobilizing them and precipitating their exodus,” writes QPAT President Heidi Yetman.
The changes were presented “in disaster” Wednesday evening to the unions and “without the possibility of discussing them”, for its part noted the CSN.
Union Public Service Employees Federation President Annie Charland ‘insists’ that N95 masks should be available to all school staff and expresses concern that ventilation issues ‘still remain unresolved’ after 22 months of pandemic”, which represents, according to her, “Nonsense”.
“Of course we want our schools to remain open as much as possible, but we don’t want them to become uncontrollable hotbeds of contamination,” adds Caroline Quesnel, the president of the federation which represents teachers in private schools.
School principals ask for “time”
School principals are asking for “time” to organize themselves and make schools safe. They claim “one or two working days”.
The Montreal Association of School Principals says it has requested that a pedagogical day be scheduled for Monday in order to organize the pedagogical transition between virtual teaching and classroom presence.
“As for the possibility of calling parents to the rescue for the substitution in class, it does not appear to be applicable in the short term, nor desirable”, launches the group in a press release.
He says he is worried about “the non-availability” of rapid tests in secondary school and “the too short deadline” to distribute them in primary school.
“However, as these tests are the tool for managing the presence or not of children in classes, we must have them in hand from Monday morning, which will probably not be the case”, affirms the president of the association, Kathleen Legault.