Teachers union, school division board call on Manitoba to move schools to remote learning

Manitoba's teachers union and the board of Winnipeg's biggest school division are calling on the province to make changes to its back-to-school plan — including moving almost all students back to remote learning.

The Manitoba Teachers' Society and the Winnipeg School Division's board of trustees both say they want schools to move back to red-level restrictions, the highest on the province's pandemic response system, amid a spike in cases in the province driven by the highly contagious Omicron coronavirus variant.

Last week, Education Minister Cliff Cullen announced Manitoba will delay its return to classes after the winter break until Jan. 10 to give the province more time to assess the impact of the variant and send rapid tests to K-6 classrooms.

However, Manitoba Teachers' Society president James Bedford says he's asked the government to move schools to code red for the month of January, calling it the best way to manage staffing demands and ensure continuity of safe learning.

"The real hope is that this would be the break that's necessary to control the spread of the current variant," he said Friday.

"The concern, of course, is that if we get into in-person learning and we see large numbers of cases within students, within the staff in schools, it could make for a very disruptive month of learning in January."

In a statement on Friday, the union said it's opposed to any hybrid learning arrangements and optional remote learning, which Bedford said make teachers' jobs "extraordinarily difficult."

"Quite literally, it's like doing two jobs at once," he said.

The statement also says the province will need to provide medical-grade N95 masks to all education staff who are still at school during remote learning, since the children of critical service workers would still be allowed to go to class.

Bedford says the union hopes to hear solid plans from the province soon to give teachers time to prepare for any changes.

"A shift from in-person learning to remote learning is not something that you can accomplish overnight," he said.

'Schools aren't islands'

Betty Edel, the chair of the Winnipeg School Division's board of trustees, made a similar request in a letter to Premier Heather Stefanson, Cullen and Health Minister Audrey Gordon, urging them to act immediately.

"We've done all that we can do. The schools aren't islands amongst themselves. Everything that happens out in the community impacts what's going on in the schools," she said.

"We know that we are getting reports of [case] increases even over the Christmas break. We are getting reports of students and staff confirming that they've tested positive and that they were in the schools when they … were contagious."

Edel's letter also urges the government to make rapid tests available for all staff and students, and either N95 or KN95 masks available to staff and students 12 and older who are still coming to class.

"Just make it available. We don't want people trying to figure out where they can get some or that there's not enough," she said. "Just bring it into the schools and we can make sure everyone has access."

The letter also urges the province to make sure all education staff are prioritized for their third dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and to bring in stricter public-health measures to curb transmission.

In an emailed statement to CBC News, Education Minister Cliff Cullen said, "Manitoba Education and Public Health continue to balance the need for structured school settings and the spread of COVID."

Cullen's statement said the province's COVID response planning team — which includes the Manitoba Teachers' Society and Winnipeg School Division — is reviewing return-to-school plans in consultation with Public Health and will share those plans "as soon as possible."

More steps needed: advocates

Members of Safe September Manitoba, an advocacy group that's been lobbying the government to make schools safer during the pandemic, say the school division's request doesn't go far enough.

Luanne Karn, a special education resource teacher at Robert Andrews Middle School, says they still want to see portable HEPA filtration units and carbon dioxide monitoring and reporting for all K-12 classrooms.

It's kind of like how schools monitor for smoke to detect fires, says Karn, who also has a daughter in Grade 4.

"We need that information as teachers to be able to ensure that we're doing the job," she said.

"As a teacher, I recognize my role is to protect students and their health and safety when they're not with their parents."

Dawnis Kennedy, who has a son in Grade 4 who's been learning from home throughout the pandemic, says those measures are especially important considering how much close contact kids have in schools.

"They're not just stepping in and out like [at] a grocery store," Kennedy said. "They're going to be there all day.

"I think we need to prioritize. So even though I think everybody deserves reasonable protection, we need to prioritize all high-risk settings. That includes schools."

The group also wants high-quality masks available for students of all ages, not just those 12 and up.

Recent deaths

The update comes after the recent deaths of two educators at one of the division's schools.

The Winnipeg Teachers' Association announced the death of J. B. Mitchell School teacher Megan Wolff on Thursday. Wolff died after contracting COVID-19, as first reported by the Winnipeg Free Press.

"I just want to honour her for all the work [she did]. She's just really widely known in the community and just greatly appreciated for everything she did working with the students," Edel said. "Our sincere condolences to her family in their loss at this time."

On Friday, the association said the school's principal had also died, though it did not provide details about what caused that death.

Edel says the losses have been difficult for other workers in the division, but also declined to comment further.

"It definitely is impacting the staff," she said.