NDP calls on province to release plan for safe reopening of schools – including hiring additional teachers and educational assistants

As the current school year winds down and graduation plans wrap up, the province’s opposition is calling on the government to commit to hiring additional teachers and educational assistants (EAs) for September.

Education Critic Carla Beck says keeping students safe if they return to school in the fall should be of paramount concern.

“We know that prior to the pandemic, we had schools that had classes in some cases as high as 50 students in one classroom. We know that there were school buses that were sitting three students to a seat, that we had increased class sizes right across the province in many cases, and that there simply were not enough resources to look at things like class size.”

Beck says they’re hearing teachers and parents are looking for reassurance that schools across the province have the resources to handle social distancing to limit the risk of a potential second wave of COVID-19 infections in the province. That also includes securing and distributing personal protective equipment.

She’s hoping the provincial government provides additional funding for cleaning staff and maintenance workers.

“We just want assurances from the provincial government that they will be funding any of those additional costs that school divisions incur, either because of the need to ensure social distancing within schools, or that they incur because we’ve gone back to online learning and they need additional resources for students who need technology or teachers who need additional bandwidth,” said Beck.

She says she’s also concerned because if overall group gathering size limits are still limited in September, it could present a significant challenge for school divisions, and even school bus drivers trying to comply with those measures.

At this point, the provincial government has not announced whether students will be heading back to classrooms in September. School divisions right now are putting budgets together, and are awaiting direction from the Education Ministry’s Education Planning Response Team.