Against all odds, schools will reopen next Monday. A large portion of Quebec — children, parents, employers — breathes the idea of resuming a semblance of normality, the backpack rather than the computer on the mess of the kitchen table. The “light at the end of the tunnel” of which Prime Minister François Legault speaks is the end of distance education, whose harmful effects on success and mental health are more than worrying.
Now that Omicron is no longer in danger of causing hospitals to implode from the inside, the virus almost takes on the appearance of the most teddy variant of all those that have blown across the globe. The political audience gathered on Thursday repeated it in a reassuring tone: a more contagious virus, of course, but which would spare people more – and children – from severe forms of the disease. Will there be cases in schools, which come back to life next Monday? Of course yes, because zero risk is a utopia. The experts weighed the risks: on the one hand, the spread of the disease among students and staff; on the other, the risks of isolation and academic delays caused by distance education. Mental health and academic achievement won. This is great news.
Parents, teachers and school principals should, however, expect a somewhat chaotic return. With forecasts of absenteeism on the staff side, the contingency plan unveiled yesterday provides for a good dose of creativity in class dress: if the bank of substitutes and redirected staff runs out, it is not forbidden for parents act as class supervisors. And why not ? The unions did not react to this return with much enthusiasm, and we understand that the wear and tear of the pandemic weighs on them, but the time should be for collaboration and audacity.
Still, some serious questions remain unanswered. Starting with the vaccination levels of elementary school children — 60% of this clientele received a first dose in Quebec. A survey of Duty broadcast on Thursday showed that on the island of Montreal, vaccination rates (first dose) vary enormously from one school to another, and drop below 5% in some places. In 58 primary schools, the vaccination rate was less than 30% as of January 10. One wonders: what happened to vaccination efforts in schools that needed to step up the pace to provide additional protection? In the past, these operations do not seem to have been very successful, but there is no reason why they should not be vigorously pursued again.
Other important issues remain in the dark, such as ventilation, for which a detailed follow-up is expected this Friday. The accessibility of rapid tests, promised by the Minister of Education, Jean-François Roberge, from next week will be a condition for the success of the isolation protocol put in place for children infected or deemed to be contact cases in their family. . Without this crucial tool, chaos will come again through the front door.