(Montreal) Quebec teachers say they won’t have time to monitor how well children brush their teeth every day at school.
Posted at 12:55 p.m.
Teachers’ unions say their members already have a big enough workload and now is not the time to put them in charge of making sure their students’ mouths are cleaned properly.
Unions are responding to the rollout of a supervised toothbrushing program in daycares and elementary schools across Quebec.
The “Québec Supervised Tooth Brushing Program with Fluoridated Toothpaste” provides that teachers must ensure that children brush their teeth for two minutes every day, in daycare and elementary school.
The program was announced in 2017 by the Department of Health and Human Services, but its rollout was later delayed due to the pandemic.
Josée Scalabrini, president of the Federation of Teachers’ Unions, which represents 87,000 teachers, believes that it is a program with laudable objectives, but that its application is completely unrealistic on the ground.
Another union, the Autonomous Federation of Education, which has more than 60,000 members, also claims that the requirements of the program are completely disconnected from the reality of schools.