To protect schools, clamp down on COVID-19 across Sask., says teachers federation president

The Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation is calling on the province to bring in more restrictions to stop the spread of COVID-19.

STF president Patrick Maze said Thursday that mandatory mask-wearing should be a provincewide policy, but some changes need to be adopted inside schools as well.

For example, Maze says extracurricular activities in schools should be suspended. Right now, the decision on whether to do that is left up to individual school divisions and as a result, there's a "tremendous" amount of pressure for teachers to volunteer, he says.

"A few programs start up. Then students start to put pressure on those staff members for more extracurricular offerings," he said. "We need a strong statement on that as well — that we're just not offering extracurricular [activities] during a global pandemic."

Maze also says there should be a limit on the number of schools each staff member can attend.

"We've heard of situations where substitute teachers have potentially unknowingly spread it to two or three or four schools before the contact tracing can get back and realize that 'Oh, this person has it and now we have three schools to be concerned with.'"

Maze says school boards should restrict community-based activities in schools to reduce community spread and protect students and teachers.

The Saskatchewan government is poised to introduce new restrictions for the province on Friday.

A group of more than 400 doctors has written to the province urging it to do so, saying the COVID-19 situation is out of control.