Parents' frustration builds as schools remain closed

Now that much of the chaos in Fiona's aftermath has calmed, Mandy Richardville is looking forward to getting her kids back into a regular school routine. Unfortunately, she's not sure when that will happen.

"It would be nice to have some transparency on the rationale, but the schools are doing their best to let us know what's going on," she said.

Richardville's children have been home from school since Fiona hit. Her eldest goes to Queen Charlotte Intermediate, while her youngest is a student at West Kent Elementary. Both schools have been closed since the storm, leaving Richardville watching the province's list of school closures for updates.

"We check every day at 5 p.m., to see if they're open again," she said.

Richardville isn't the only parent frequently checking the list of school closures.

Five schools remained shut on Wednesday. Four of them — all in Charlottetown — are physically ready to open, but city officials say unsafe conditions in the areas surrounding the schools make it impossible to do so.

"We're still running in, unfortunately, in those areas with lots of wires that are down," said Charlottetown's acting fire chief Tim Mamye.

"Some have been repaired, some have not. We've got lots of poles that are unstable, and lots of trees still in wire lines, power lines, that we're trying to assess and get out of the way."

Mamye said although the area around each of the schools may seem safe at first, some risks might not be immediately visible.

"The other day we found a couple of roads that a bus would not be recommended on simply because of the low hanging wires," he said.

Even though many of the downed wires around the schools are communications lines, and most of the power to them has been turned off, Mamye said earlier in the week crews discovered a live wire in an area that was supposed to have been shut off. 

"We just don't want to take that chance, obviously," he said.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Public Schools Branch confirmed all four schools would remain closed Thursday. 

"We had several meetings with emergency services at the City of Charlottetown, public works, fire, utility companies including Maritime Electric, and the messaging back from the group as a whole is the catchment area surrounding these schools is not safe," said Norbert Carpenter, director of the Public Schools Branch.

Carpenter said crews are uncovering unexpected hazards every day — including live or unknown wires. He said he understands parents' frustrations, but safety has to come first.

"We can't have students walking to school or being driven to school and then coming into harm's way," he said.

As for Richardville, she said she does understand why schools would remain closed if the areas around them are unsafe.

"It absolutely makes sense to me," she said. "We have some friends over on Admiral, which is a street a lot of the kids walk to get to school, same with Green. And those all have downed wires, so as they're firing the grid back up, it would be quite unsafe."

Officials are now looking into what students can be doing so they don't fall too far behind. Carpenter said conversations are ongoing, but the challenge is, with power still out for many families in the affected areas, virtual learning is not a viable option.