The Richmond School District is asking all parents to fill out an online survey to determine exactly how many students will be returning to in-class learning in June.
The survey was posted on Tuesday and responses are needed by Thursday at 4 p.m. Parents who don’t respond by then won’t be allowed to send their kids to school the week of June 1.
The school district said, in a statement posted on its website along with the survey May 20, that it is “critical” that each school knows how many students will be returning, “in order to plan for a safe and healthy school environment for all students and staff.”
“Parents who do not complete the survey by the deadline will not be able to have their child(ren) attend school until they have contacted the school principal so appropriate arrangements can be made in advance of a return,” reads the statement.
Meanwhile, parents who opt to not have their child return to school in week of June 1 to June 5 will have the option of having their child attend starting the week of June 8.
The district also acknowledged that parents “may have other questions” about what a return to school will look like, and said that more information will be provided during the week of May 25.
Last week, B.C. Education Minister Rob Fleming announced students in kindergarten to Grade 5 will be back in classrooms half-time, and Grades 6 to 12 will be back 20 per cent as of June 1. However, the decision to send students back to school is up to their parents, based on how safe they feel it is.
According to district superintendent Scott Robinson, that means that kindergarten to Grade 5 students have the option of attending school two days a week, while students in Grades 6 to 12 will be able to return to school for the equivalent of one day a week.
An exception to these new measures are children of essential workers, who can attend school five days a week. While those students are currently attending separate, on-site care centres in designated schools, starting June 1 they can attend their “home” school, according to Robinson.
Parents who choose to keep their children at home for the remainder of the school year will have access to remote learning.
But not all B.C. parents are keen to let their children resume in-class learning.
A Vancouver mother launched a Change.org petition, urging the province to keep schools closed until September. As of around noon Thursday, more than 20,400 people signed the petition.
The petition argues that kindergarten to Grade 5 students are “too young to carry the social responsibility to effectively sanitize themselves for the health and safety of others,” yet they will be at school twice as much as older students. Children that age, the petition continues, are also less likely to recognize early symptoms of the virus or voice concerns.
Spread of the virus may also be increased if some employers expect their employees to “willingly return to the workplace” given the option of part-time in-class learning, according to the petition, making their decision to send their children back a “forced risk” rather than voluntary.
“The shortest route to our second wave is to send our children back to school; at the risk of our children, our teachers and everyone they come in contact with,” reads the petition.
“This is not an acceptable risk, particularly at a time when the long-term medical impacts of COVID-19 are still under investigation.”
