Eight demands for return to class

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This article was published 14/08/2020 (1597 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Less than 24 hours after the movement was aptly given a name — Safe September MB — hundreds of Manitobans waved its banner, calling on the province to implement a safe return to classroom instruction with mandatory face masks and e-learning options.

A non-partisan collective of teachers, parents and community members has created a list of eight demands in order to ensure schools will be safe for all students, staff and Manitoba residents this fall.

The calls include: shrinking class sizes to support physical distancing of two metres; mandating masks for all staff and students (with exemptions, where appropriate); assessing ventilation and filtration systems in all schools and following recommendations for upgrades; reinstating the 14-day isolation period for non-essential travellers outside of Manitoba; and providing publicly funded remote learning for all students.

Under the province’s current back-to-school plan, only students who are immunocompromised will be able to access distance learning.

Divisions have been asked to prepare plans for these learners, but if a student becomes ill or needs to self-isolate, classroom teachers will be required to provide at-home work.

As far as Safe September MB is concerned, distance learning should be made available to all students, regardless of whether they have a doctor’s note to support their family’s choice to have them stay home.

On Friday evening, the movement’s petition had collected upwards of 2,800 signatures. (The Change.org webpage was created late Thursday.)

“We are very supportive of reopening, we simply want it done in a sustainable way that provides equity and safety for all students,” said Melissa Bowman Wilson, who has two school-age children entering grades 5 and 8, respectively, in the Winnipeg School Division.

If the plan does not change, Bowman Wilson said she’s worried many families, hers included, will be forced to pull their children out of the public system and put them into either the independent or homeschool system.

Another signatory is Winnipeg mother Dawnis Kennedy. Kennedy’s son is a soon-to-be Grade 3 student at Isaac Brock School — but given his asthma and their community of elders and loved ones with underlying health conditions, she does not feel comfortable sending him to class.

“I want options for everybody,” Kennedy said Friday.

“I want (my son) to understand that we’re in this as a community. We’re in this together, and I want him to know we’re making different choices than some of our friends. Everybody has a different way that they’re living, different needs.”

Kennedy, from Roseau River Anishinaabe First Nation, said she is determined to make sure her son can access remote learning that keeps him connected to Ojibwa immersion language support. Without it, Kennedy would not be able to help her son learn the language through homeschooling.

It is not lost on her that the public school system — and its history of residential schools, day schools and intergenerational trauma — is what prevented her from learning Ojibwa.

Also on her mind: systemic racism has led to Indigenous people being at a higher risk of developing diabetes and other health conditions, while Indigenous communities are more susceptible to community transmission because of intergenerational trauma and poverty.

“We know education benefits all students, and that it’s a priority — I understand that, as an Indigenous parent, education is not always a benefit. It hasn’t been in the past and it has to prove itself to my family that it takes our language learning seriously,” she said.

Safe September MB also wants the province to take more precautions to protect educators.

Among its demands: employees who request to work from home should have the ability to do so, and support remote learners; full paid sick leave for divisional staff who have to self-isolate or are recovering from COVID-19; and additional substitute and educational assistant hires to address absences.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie