When a school receives word of a covid case, it’s not just one person who isolates, the case can affect dozens of staff and hundreds of students and their families. This impacts everyone involved in many ways-stress, anxiety, exhaustion as people scramble to accommodate. /1

There are more and more stories of schools having to switch to online while people isolate and I fear we will see more of this as cases rise in our communities. I agree schools provide a societal good, and teachers want to see schools stay open. But schools need help. Now. /2

Government needs to provide support for staff, students and families to manage the stress and fatigue. Principals need admin support when dealing with positive cases (a lot has been downloaded on them), hire EA’s back to support learning and health protocols, supervision /3

Address the largest class sizes to allow for more physical distancing, suspend further standardized testing. These are all reasonable and attainable things to do that will help keep our staff and students safe. If this is truly a priority of this government, then make it so. /4