If @bcdc had asked, teachers would have explained that it takes up to 2 hours each day to fulfill the hand washing guidelines for each class in typical #bced elementary school. cc:@bctf #AskATeacher#WeWorkInSchools
The logistics of hand washing in over crowded #bced schools.
What following the hand hygiene guidelines look like in over crowded #bced classrooms
The realities in #bced schools after 18 years of being defunded.
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We're repeatedly told that schools have to stay open because that's important for students' mental health but whose mental health is being prioritized by Minister Whiteside? 🧵 1/? #bcpoli#bced
2/?
Certainly not the student who's terrified that their maskless peers are sitting right next to them in a windowless classroom in a school with inadequate ventilation.
3/?
Nor is it the Grade 6 student who texts their mom in the middle of the day to fetch them from school because they're worried about all the maskless students sitting around them in class. They are terrified of taking the variant home to their 40 year old parents.
🧵 Teachers in #bced, in the absence of adequate protections from the @bcndp gov't, let's crowdsource best ideas to keep safe when there's no mask mandate.
1. Wear an N95 mask or equivalent that fits tightly around your face or if you don't have these, double mask.
2. Follow the advice of Dr. Fauci and the mandatory rule of the Peel School District: wear goggles or a face shield. The virus is airborne. You need to keep it out of your eyes. #bcpoli
3. If you are lucky enough to have windows that open, keep them wide open. The virus is airborne. Don't give it opportunities to accumulate in your classroom.
If you're not, for the sake of survival, get a HEPA filter air purifier for your classroom. #bcpoli
Being calm & kind will support mental health but it's truth that will keep us safe.
To that end, a few question suggestions for @richardzussman:
What data, exactly, shows that there is low/no transmission in #bced schools & that students don't transmit the virus? 1/? #bcpoli
2/?
Why did the Minister of Public Safety, and not the Public Health Officer, mandate masks in all indoor public spaces?
" As such, a vaccine alone, no matter how effective, will not tip the balance toward health because COVID-19 is not a disease; it is a symptom of an exhausted planet. " theglobeandmail.com/opinion/articl…
Schools are being kept open not because of the need for educating students, their primary function, but because #bced performs a social safety net function in the provision of food, & the support of mental health in children. 1/?
2/? Schools perform these functions despite the fact that there is a Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, a Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, and a Ministry of Child and Family Development in BC.
3/? The ‘downsides’ that Dr Henry talks about to closing schools is not related to a loss of learning but to the loss of food and mental health support for children in one of the richest provinces in Canada. A province where 1 in 5 children lives in poverty.