Just as COVID-19 cases have fallen throughout Athabasca, Barrhead and Westlock, so too have the number of active cases among students and staff in the Pembina Hills School Division.
Assistant Supt. of education services Mark Thiesen reported to the Pembina Hills trustees at their Nov. 10 meeting that there were just five active cases of COVID-19 throughout the division.
Thiesen reported that only two schools — Barrhead Elementary School and Westlock Elementary School — were listed as being on “alert” status, which means at least two confirmed cases have been identified at either school.
He noted that a school is identified as being on alert status “for a long time” after cases have been identified, as they have to go a certain period of time without any COVID cases being detected.
“Don’t panic (about the alerts), because the actual truth of the matter is that it takes some time for those cases to work their way through,” he said.
Thiesen also told trustees that the process of informing families of cases changed roughly a month ago.
What happens now is that Alberta Health Services sends him an e-mail listing the cases that have been confirmed at a school. Thiesen then relays that information to the school administration who send out a templated letter notifying parents of the situation and advising them to monitor their children for symptoms.
“These are different than the contact tracing letters that were sent out last year, when we were actually looking to tell people that they are contacts and you need to stay home,” he said.
Thiesen added that they continue to monitor absenteeism at local schools, and if a particular school or classroom goes above 10 per cent of the student population missing, he sends out an e-mail to Alberta Health Services and they make some follow-up calls with families.
A few of the division’s early learning programs have experienced high absenteeism this year, he noted. While COVID might have been a factor in some cases, it’s generally attributable to another respiratory illness that hits children around this time of year.
Vaccination records
More than half of Pembina Hills staff, including part-time and casual staff, have submitted their vaccination records to the division, reported assistant Supt. of human resources Brett Cooper.
Under Administrative Procedure 20-07, all Pembina Hills staff, contractors and others who are attending division property with regularity must submit their vaccination records to the division before Nov. 27.
After that date, all partially and unvaccinated staff will have to undergo regular testing before they can come to work. (Pembina Hills plans to cover the cost of testing for those staff members until the Christmas holidays, at which point they are on their own.)
Cooper said 496 of the 897 full-time, part-time and casual staff within the division have submitted their vaccination records to human resources, which works out to roughly 55 per cent.
Breaking down the numbers further, Cooper said they have received the vaccination records of 209 support staff (from a total of 328), 169 certificated staff (from a total of 256), 33 casual non-teachers (of a total 112) and 90 casual teachers (of a total 201).
A full 98.6 per cent of those who have reported their vaccination status have gotten both doses. Seven staff have indicated they are not vaccinated, and two have said they are partially vaccinated.
Finally, there has been one resignation among the casual staff in response to the mandate.
Cooper said they were going to send out an e-mail reminder to staff later that day and also closer to the Nov. 29 deadline.
“We’ll know as we get closer to the date how many people have not shared with us,” Cooper said.
Substitute staff who have not submitted their vaccination records and have not gotten testing done prior to the Nov. 29 deadline will be removed from the list of available subs who can be called in to cover absences.
When asked what happens if there’s an instance of a teacher needing a sub and there is no fully-vaccinated subs available, Cooper said they used to experience that scenario prior to COVID, and they usually manage to make it work by shuffling staff around or even bringing in regional office staff to cover for a day.
“We will make sure that students are looked after, one way or another,” he said.
