How teachers are feeling about going back to class without COVID-19 restrictions

Students are back in class without COVID-19 restrictions this week and the president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union says some members have mixed feelings about it.

"I think there's a lot of teachers who are really excited to be back and in for what is [hoped to be] a more normal year than we've had over the past," Ryan Lutes told CBC Radio's Information Morning Nova Scotia on Thursday.

"Then, there's other groups of teachers who are excited to see their kids but are just more apprehensive and nervous, just not knowing how COVID is going to impact classrooms in the fall."

On Wednesday, Minister of Education Becky Druhan said the department will continue to work closely with Public Health and follow their guidance for schools.

"[We're] still implementing measures to reduce the transmission of respiratory diseases, encouraging folks to get vaccinated, washing hands and surfaces and creating and promoting an environment that's supportive of masking when people choose to do so," Druhan told Information Morning.

Lutes said some teachers still have concerns as the school year starts. He shared some of those with host Portia Clark on Thursday.

Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What's going on with ventilation this year?

Certainly, ventilation is still a major concern for the NSTU and for our teachers. We really haven't seen a lot of tangible impacts or increases to ventilation. The province has been provided money from the federal government and apart from putting some HEPA filters in schools that had no mechanical ventilation, we really haven't seen any impacts. We would like to see HEPA filters for every classroom and I think that would really help with the confidence of kids and teachers and parents knowing that the government is doing everything they can to keep keep the air safe as possible. 

Another thing that we're seeing some provinces do is put CO2 monitors in classrooms so that folks can get a real-time assessment of ventilation quality and air quality in their classrooms and we'd like to see more tangible impacts from government.

Are teachers building their own HEPA filters? We've seen some teachers posting about this.

Yeah, I've heard anecdotally that some are and I think that shows kind of a failure of government to assuage people and to build their confidence. When teachers think that they need to take matters into their own hands and make the air as safe as possible for them and the kids — teachers are always going to do what they feel is best for kids and for their staff and so that really shows government hasn't been leading on that and I think that's a real missed opportunity, not only for COVID, but for other respiratory illnesses.

We want kids and our staff to be in our schools, to be as healthy as they can so they can be in school as often as they want to be. I really think that would go a long way to keeping those folks in buildings.

It isn't mandatory to isolate if you have COVID, so what does that mean for classrooms?

That's also a concern that I've heard from teachers, is that we're going from last year where if you had COVID, you were required to isolate and now folks that test for COVID do not have to isolate. 

So that's a real concern, especially when you add on that layer of, "Geez, I'm not sure my ventilation in my classroom is up to par. Government is saying it is. But I see the vents on my wall and they're dirty and I know how the classroom feels stifling. There's no way air is moving enough."

So when they're trying to kind of jive the message from government [against] what they're seeing on the ground every day, it's a big challenge.

What's your message to parents whose children might be sick?

Certainly, my message to parents is the same as Dr. [Robert] Strang, [Nova Scotia's chief medical officer of health]. The message is that if you're sick, you should be home. Obviously, that's complicated and I recognize myself that staying home as a parent, staying home with your kids that are sick is a luxury that not every Nova Scotian has. 

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There are a lot of Nova Scotians that are choosing between staying home with their kids who are sick or putting food on the table because they need that shift and so I think that's another area where government can provide some support people through a paid sick leave program or through updating labour standards so that all employers are required to provide a set number of sick days because we all know that poverty in this province is a real concern and and those parents and those families need our help. 

What about teachers, when there aren't enough substitute teachers? There was a shortage last year. Has anything been done about that?

That's a real concern. We saw how the shortages were impacting schools last year. Certainly, the government is trying to put in — they certified some [Bachelor of Education] students last year early, so hopefully that helped some of them stick around and maybe there's a few more substitute teachers. But really that's a major concern and what we need is a long-term solution to recruitment and retention for teachers. 

A lack of substitute teachers, that's a teacher shortage and we had a teacher shortage before the pandemic and, certainly, the pandemic has exacerbated that. One of the things that people don't know about is, our substitute teachers, if they work every day of the school year, they do not make a living wage in the province and that's a real concern for folks. There are substitute teachers who have moved on to other careers and other jobs because they can't make ends meet on substitute pay. So that's something we've called on the province to deal with and we'll be looking to support those substitute teachers.

Have the needs of students changed over the past couple of years and how do teachers get a sense of that?

I think over the last number of years, obviously … the pandemic has had mental health impacts on kids. Certainly, the disruption in the school year, I'm sure has had some impacts and for teachers. Teachers always get a new group of kids in front of them and they're always trying to assess the needs of their students. Certainly, obviously, some students and some classes are going to have more needs than others and so what we're expecting the government and the regional centres to do is to support those teachers.

One of the major stresses for teachers is not feeling like they're able to meet the needs of their kids. That's what every teacher wants, is to go home every day feeling really successful and unfortunately because of a lot of students' needs and because of a lack of support, teachers aren't able to meet all the diverse needs of the kids and certainly the pandemic has exacerbated that. So we really need government to come through with funding to make sure all of our students have teachers in front of them that feel like they can be successful and meet the needs of their students.