Parents worried about the safety of their kids as students return to school today

As students gear up to start school today, parents are concerned about their safety amid rising cases of COVID-19 in the delta-variant driven fourth wave.

The province saw 274 new cases on Tuesday, bringing the total to 2,204 active cases.

Some parents are considering homeschooling their kids or switching to online learning as the delta variant poses a high risk to unvaccinated children and there are no clear guidelines for safety in schools. 

Emma Love's two sons were supposed to attend Buena Vista School in Saskatoon. However, as more people are being hospitalized with the virus, Love decided to homeschool her boys again because her husband is immunocompromised.

"Last year, we chose to homeschool because there was so much uncertainty," Love, who is married to NDP MLA Matt Love, said. "Who would have thought that it would be so much worse this fall than last. Looking at the numbers now with 640 per cent more cases and delta making kids sick in the States, this is the only option." 

Both her boys were looking forward to going back to school, but Love said public health measures are lacking and she doesn't think that relying on masking in classrooms will be sufficient to keep her children safe. 

"Our middle guy of eight is really confused and feels afraid and sad," she said. "He's a really bright and social kid. And we're doing our best to protect him and make the curricula exciting, but it's a huge loss to the kids." 

Love consulted her doctor and friends in the U.S. before making the call. 

'A mask isn't enough'

"We've really boiled it down to just kids wearing masks in classrooms," she said. "We haven't improved ventilation, or class numbers, or mandated vaccines for the teachers. It just feels like we're putting way too much pressure on a child wearing a mask to keep them safe." 

She said many of her friends are sending their kids back to school because they missed out on social development over the past year-and-a-half. And although Love worries about her children missing out socially, she doesn't want to take the risk of sending them back.

Katherine Stevenson, a mother of two, understands that worry. She withdrew her daughter from pre-kindergarten and is putting her in an outdoor school, while her seven-year-old immunocompromised son will attend a public school online program.  

"I'm really frustrated because if we'd made different choices through the summer like maintaining indoor masking, the transmission rates would be quite lower," Stevenson said. "With community transmission rising, it feels very daunting to send your kid into that situation." 

Though her son enjoys the online school, he misses having contact with other children. Stevenson said her daughter will wear a mask at the outdoor school, but that she'll pull her out of it, if numbers continue to rise.

"She was in counselling last year simply because it felt like behaviourally, she's struggling," Stevenson said. "We've had quite a lot of challenges with her through the year, and it's hard not to attribute it to the fact that she has no contact with children, except her brother." 

Stevenson, who is part of a group that is trying to start a school for immunocompromised children, said she won't send her children to school until vaccines are available for them. 

Public health

Mother of three, Gina Khonje, is sending two of her kids to Hugh Cairns V.C. school in Saskatoon despite feeling uneasy about the decision. She's hoping the situation improves.

Her children attended the school last year and Khonje said she's glad with the communication, masking policies and contact tracing at the school. 

The school division is trying to keep students safe, Khonje said, but she doesn't think it's their responsibility to make public health policy. 

"It's unfair to download it onto the individual school system and ask them to do it," she said.

Her kids are excited about being with their friends again, and Khonje said she'll have to learn to live with the risks. 

Shauna Krassman is also trying to adjust to the new normal. Her daughter will start Grade 5 at Lyndale School in Oungre, about 175 km southeast of Regina, today as Krassman and her husband can't work from home. 

"I'm not comfortable because the school division doesn't require masking in classrooms," she said. 

Last year, her daughter stopped wearing a mask because of peer pressure and she's afraid the same thing will happen again.

No standards or requirements in place

The University of Saskatchewan is working on a project, which assesses the back-to-school plans in the province according to the presence of public health measures like masking, ventilation, availability of online learning and such.

Krassman said she wasn't surprised to see her daughter's school division, South East Cornerstone Public, received a grade D on the scale of A to D. 

University of Saskatchewan epidemiologist, Nazeem Muhajarine who is involved with the ongoing assessment, said the idea is to assist school divisions to learn from one another. 

"The big four, two school divisions in Regina and Saskatoon each, are reasonably well prepared," Muhajarine said. "School divisions from rural and remote areas are mixed. In some places there are measures like masking, and in others, there's more work to do." 

"The provincial government has not issued guidelines or even requirements comprehensively to school divisions in order to keep children safe," he said. "This is a very sad situation... when we know kids are more susceptible to the delta variant than the previous variants." 

 Shawn Davidson, president of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association, said that protocols are in place and that all school divisions have plans in place in case community transmissions increase.  

"We want to ensure that our schools are safe, welcoming and happy places this fall, but we also do want to return to some sense of normalcy," he said.