Students sent to stay with relatives hours away miss class after schools reopen

Even as Nova Scotia schools reopened Tuesday, some students were still missing from class after parents who had feared schools would be closed for days sent them to stay with family hours away.

Sheena Johnson drove her five children from Dartmouth to Eskasoni First Nation in Cape Breton on Sunday so her parents could help care for them. 

The NSCC student said she couldn't afford to pay for daycare in the Halifax area and didn't think she could find space for all her kids at one centre on such short notice. 

After learning the schools were reopening, she decided it was better to miss time from her own metal fabrication course than have her four school-aged children remain with family all week.

10-hour return trip 

On Tuesday night, she was making the 10-hour trip to Eskasoni and back to Dartmouth for the second time in three days.

"I'd prefer for them to be in school instead of not doing anything," she said. "If it does happen again, I'll have to do the same thing and go to my parents."

The Mi'kmaq Friendship Centre in Halifax is helping pay for gas but Johnson said missing her classes means she's docked $60 in social assistance.

Over the weekend Education Karen Casey cancelled school for students on Monday, claiming there were safety concerns with the work-to-rule job action teachers were preparing to take.

She also said the government would introduce legislation to impose a contract on teachers. Schools would remain closed until it passed.

On Monday she backtracked on the proposed law and announced schools would reopen Tuesday.

But that change of tack didn't come before Paula Green and her husband drove her four and six year old to Sackville, N.B., to stay with her parents because she didn't have any child-care options close to the family's home in Lawrencetown, N.S. 

"I'm just really angry that we had to do that," Green said Tuesday, adding she now feels guilty her two older children are missing school.

'Little ones don't understand' 

Her six-year-old son is learning to read and write and Green said she and her husband wouldn't have chosen to pull him out of class for a week.

She said the family couldn't afford the approximately $100 per day that daycare would cost. They're already paying for their two year old, who stayed in Nova Scotia this week. 

Making an arrangement with a daycare or going to a day camp wasn't ideal either, especially since there was little time to do research or help the children ease into the transition, Green said. 

"I wanted to make sure my children felt comfortable where they were and that they weren't going to be put in a situation where they'd have any sort of anxiety," she told CBC Halifax's Mainstreet.  

"Little ones don't understand. My six year old at one point said to my four year old that we just have to come up with $200 so the teachers can go back to school."

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Waiting to hear

The occupational therapist said neither she nor her husband are in a position to take vacation time to return to New Brunswick to pick up their kids before the weekend. 

"I'm disappointed but I know my clients need me and for me to take a vacation day would mean I'm not doing my job well," she said. 

Green is still waiting to hear what's next in the contract dispute between teachers and the province. 

"If it looks like the situation is going to go on for longer, I don't know what we're going to do," she said. 

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