After the holiday break, high school students will not attend class until January 10, which will postpone their return to school by a few days at most. Primary school students will return to school as planned.
As of Wednesday, 1,416 schools had at least one active case of COVID-19, or nearly half of the establishments. Since the start of the school year, 77% of schools have reported at least one case.
But because schools are “important” for children and “help with vaccination”, Prime Minister François Legault repeated Thursday that Quebec “does not want to close schools”.
A point of view shared by the Montreal Association of School Managers (AMDES). “Our first objective is to keep our students in class,” says its president, Kathleen Legault.
The students of elementary schools in Quebec will therefore return to class on the date scheduled for the beginning of next year. As for those in secondary school, they will have to wait until January 10 and go to school online if their return to school was scheduled before that date.
At the Quebec Federation of Educational Institutions (FQDE), it is feared that high school students will take these few days of distance education as an extension of their vacation.
“Could we be missing some players? », Asks Nicolas Prévost, president of the FQDE.
As the vaccination rates of secondary school students are significantly higher than that of elementary school students, how can we explain why they have to stay at home?
We were told that in elementary school, if the children do not go back to school and the parents work, it is often the grandparents who look after them, which is of great concern to Public Health. High school teens are much more independent.
Nicolas Prévost, President of the Quebec Federation of Educational Institution Managers
Another change that students will see from December 20: everywhere in Quebec, the mask will again be compulsory in elementary and secondary schools, both in class and in common spaces.
“The mask in class, we are used to it. It seems to me a fairly simple measure to put back in place, ”observes Kathleen Legault, president of AMDES.
Schools take the lead
The Omicron variant has officially entered schools and forced the closure of some establishments. Faced with the rise in COVID-19 cases, high schools had already reinstated the wearing of masks at all times for their students on Thursday, while others canceled planned days of activities. Primary schools have for their part undertaken to feed the students in their respective classes at noon to avoid increasing the number of contacts.
In this context, the Autonomous Federation of Education asked, Thursday, that air exchangers be installed in all schools without mechanical ventilation.
“Knowing that COVID-19 is transmitted by aerosol and that the Omicron variant is two to three times more contagious than the Delta variant, the air quality and ventilation of schools should be a priority for the government if it wishes to keep schools open, ”declared the president of the teachers’ union, Sylvain Mallette.
The return to CEGEPs and universities postponed
CEGEPs and universities are also seeing their start of the academic year postponed to January 10. For many CEGEPs, this measure will have little effect since, in many establishments, the winter session begins after mid-January.
The situation is similar in universities. At the Université du Québec à Montréal and Université Laval, for example, the start of the winter term was already scheduled for January 10. The University of Montreal, for its part, was to welcome its students as of January 6.
With the collaboration of Pierre-André Normandin, Press
Minister Jean-François Roberge suffers from COVID-19
The Minister of Education confirmed on Thursday that he tested positive for COVID-19. Jean-François Roberge had been in administrative segregation since Monday and had not attended the Council of Ministers meeting in Quebec on Wednesday. “Public Health recommends that I be isolated until December 25 following a positive result for COVID-19, which I will obviously do. I should point out that I have been placed in administrative segregation since Monday, December 13. My family is doing well, ”he wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
47%
Proportion of children aged 5 to 11 who have had a dose of COVID-19 vaccine
Source: Department of Health and Social Services