How five families are making decisions about sending kids back to school amid Omicron

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Millions of students – in Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia – will return to in-person learning Monday. Or they’re expected to, at least. With Omicron still surging across the country, families are making difficult decisions about whether to send their children back. Child advocates have raised alarms about the harms of keeping students out of schools longer, including mental distress, learning gaps and lack of access to meals and safe shelter for some kids. But health experts and educators argue that an abandonment of robust case reporting and contact tracing has made schools unsafe. And so the risk calculation has been downloaded to families. The Globe and Mail spoke to five parents across the country about how they’re feeling.

With a child too young to be vaccinated, fear and frustration reign

There’s more to be worried about than reassured by as Shanon Noel prepares to send his daughter back to school in Halifax on Monday after an extended holiday break.

Avery will be returning to class with an upgraded mask. But she’s 4 – too young to get vaccinated. There are modular units at her school, which Mr. Noel has been told have decent ventilation, but he’s not convinced. Because Avery began school in September under pandemic restrictions, he barely knows the families of the kids, so he has little confidence any kind of parent-led informal contact tracing would happen if there was a positive case in her class.

And most frustrating of all, Mr. Noel has no idea whether Avery’s teacher has received her booster shot. In Nova Scotia, adults older than 30 only became eligible recently, and Mr. Noel (who is also a teacher) won’t get boosted till the end of the month.

But in spite of all these apprehensions, Avery is eager to be in class again, and Mr. Noel has to be back at work himself.

The Nova Scotia Teachers Union issued a release this week calling for remote learning to be extended until there is a sharp decline in COVID-19 cases; on Friday, the province reported 891 new positive cases from PCR tests. The province is not counting rapid tests in its daily case counts, and has instructed families to inform the school principal if a student tests positive on one.

Mr. Noel said he’s grown tired of seeing Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston emphasize again and again how important it is for children to be in school but not prioritize boosters for teachers, issue a clearer protocol on what to do about positive cases or guarantee ventilation upgrades for classrooms.

“If you’re going to say that we’re front line and it’s so important for us to be there and blah, blah, blah, which I’m not disagreeing with, at least give us the tools necessary in order to be there safely. And to keep the kids safe.”

– Dakshana Bascaramurty

‘Monday is frightening. I’m scared’

Stefany Thiessen’s two children – a 13-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son – have each received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in preparation for returning to their classrooms after a week of online learning. The Winnipeg mom has also secured 27 N95 masks for them.

Yet, despite all her efforts to make sure her children are protected, she feels far from ready.

“Monday is frightening. I’m scared. I am worried about the health of my children. The only thing I tell myself is I have done as much as I can. Our government is failing us. I don’t know what else I can do.”

In the previous school year, when remote learning was an option, Ms. Thiessen, a single mother, kept her children home. They are self-sufficient, but there were interruptions, making it difficult for her to concentrate on her work in accounting.

Like so many parents, she also believes her children need to be in school and socializing with their classmates. Still, her son has struggled with anxiety. There were times when she had to stop at the grocery store and he asked to remain in the car. The few times the family went out to dinner when COVID-19 case numbers were low, he was anxious to get home.

“He is very worried about going back. He has asked me not to go back,” she said.

She, too, has general anxiety disorder, diagnosed before the pandemic. In the past month and a half, she has had daily migraine symptoms. The decision to send her children to school feels out of her control: “They will be going back because there is no other good option.”

– Caroline Alphonso

Little room for risk in a multigenerational home

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The past few weeks have been harrowing for Amandeep Kang, a driver with the Region of Peel’s transportation department: She’s been assigned to drive paramedics. “Work has been very stressful. We are picking up around 10 to 12 suspected COVID patients every day,” she said.

Ms. Kang, a resident of Mississauga, said she was able to focus on carrying out all her essential work because she was assured of her children’s safety. “I risk my health at work, but at least my kids are home safe.”

She lives in a multigenerational household with her 75-year-old mother, who is diabetic. She worries that her kids, in Grades 5 and 10, may contract COVID-19 and affect their grandmother’s health severely, so she wants to mitigate the risk by keeping them home till the Omicron wave subsides. She is not convinced that schools will be able to enforce social distancing and masking. “I come home and disinfect thoroughly before meeting my mother, but how will my kids do that every day? She is at very high risk because of her immunocompromised condition. I can’t take any risks with her.”

While online learning poses challenges, Ms. Kang says her mother’s help has been invaluable. “Living in a multigenerational home gives you this advantage. While I’m at work, my mother can make sure my kids are logged on to their classes. She makes sure they get their meals on time and are taken care of.”

Ms. Kang says she is waiting for her daughter, 15, to become eligible for a booster and her son, 10, to get his second dose of vaccine. Only then can she make a call on whether it’s safe for them to return to in-person learning.

– Uday Rana

‘Who’s going to be running the show if I get seriously sick from this?’

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Amanda Moehring’s oldest daughter, a straight-A student, is so anxious about returning to school that she calculated how much time she could miss and still pass her classes.

“That’s not good for her mental health,” says Dr. Moehring, an associate professor in the biology department at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont.

All of her kids – ages 17, 13 and nine – engage better with the material when learning in-person, and she wants them to be around their peers. But ultimately she decided to keep them home, at least for the next week.

“I actually think it will be more stable having them home. I foresee there are going to be a lot of people getting sick, including teachers, and it’s going to be very disruptive.”

As well, as a single parent, Dr. Moehring can’t take the chance of falling ill from one of her kids bringing the virus home from class.

“Who’s going to be running the show if I get seriously sick from this?”

A third factor cemented her decision: She is in the privileged position of being able to work from home, and keeping her kids out of school might help lower the risk for everyone else.

“If I can keep them out of the school system and make it a little bit safer for families who have to send their kids for whatever reason … then for at least the coming week that seems like an easy choice by me to help to make it just a little bit less of a risk for them and for the teachers.”

– Dave McGinn

Online learning a challenge with two young children: ‘These kids need to see their friends’

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For the past week, Tehseen Azeemi has logged into her fashion technology courses at George Brown College from the only bedroom in her Toronto apartment. This is only after she has signed in her two young children – in Grade 3 and senior kindergarten – for their virtual classes from the living room.

To say it hasn’t been easy is an understatement. Ms. Azeemi will be sending her children to school Monday morning.

“I feel happy to be very honest. Yes, I am worried about the new variant. We know it’s here. But these kids need to see their friends,” she said.

Several waves of infection have washed through her Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood, which is dotted with high-density housing. Nearly half the students at Thorncliffe Park Public School chose the virtual option in the previous school year, but many returned to classrooms in September. The local hospital, Michael Garron Hospital, and public health have doubled their efforts to vaccinate the area’s residents, knocking on doors and opening pop-up and school-based clinics. As it stands, the vaccination rate for neighbourhood residents 12 and older is 77 per cent.

Ms. Azeemi said remote learning does not work for her family; she doesn’t even like to shop online. She has sent her children to school whenever the doors have been open. School staff, she said, have made every effort to keep them safe, including deploying masks and HEPA filters in occupied classrooms.

She will be doing her part, too. This weekend, Ms. Azeemi will take her children to get their COVID-19 vaccine.

“That’s the precaution we have to take. God forbid, even if they get that new virus, at least they will have something in their body to protect them.”

– Caroline Alphonso

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