An individual at Prince Arthur Community School has tested positive for COVID-19.
The elementary school sent a letter on Oct. 1 to parents explaining that a person in the building had contracted the virus. In response, Prairie South School Division (PSSD) sent a letter to parents with children in the classroom where the COVID-19 case was identified.
Public health will contact families of students and any staff, visitors or volunteers who were in close contact with the infected individual and provide directions. If families don't hear back, this means their child is unlikely to have been exposed due to the school’s preventative measures.
Parents are encouraged to call HealthLine at 811 if their children show symptoms.
Tony Baldwin, director of education for PSSD, explained that public health officials contacted the board office at 10 a.m. on Oct. 1 to say a case had been detected in the school. While he knew who the individual was, he was unwilling to say who it could be due to privacy issues.
It was an interesting process to handle someone with COVID-19, considering the division had not experienced this before, Baldwin said on Oct. 2. Division administration knew someone would contract the virus at some point, so it wanted to take deliberate steps the first time so it had a template it could reuse elsewhere.
“We were really happy with how that process went … . The principal of the school did an amazing job and we (also) thought the public health did an amazing job,” Baldwin said, noting the division office learned how everything played out nearly five hours after the first notification.
With those processes in place, it will continue to focus on mask use, cleaning schools, and keeping everyone safe.
The beginning of fall also means the regular cold and flu season has arrived. It did worry Baldwin that many students and staff could be sent home — creating high absenteeism rates — simply because they had a runny nose or the sniffles. Since the start of September, he pointed out that this has already happened, and it was only recently that a positive COVID-19 case popped up.
PSSD is ready to educate students virtually, as it established that ability last spring, Baldwin continued. Students can access digital platforms from home that contain content they need. Meanwhile, teachers — whether at home or in the classroom — can also use Zoom to teach.
“But there’s no question that the best teaching and learning happens when the children and staff are together in the classroom and working on that together,” he said.
One positive during the pandemic has been the new relationship between PSSD and the local medical health officer, added Baldwin. They had not had a “robust relationship” before, but since the summer, the medical community had done a great job supporting the education sector.
Baldwin had a scare himself recently over possibly contracting COVID-19. He began showing symptoms on Sept. 8, so he went for a test a day later. He then worked from home for a week before finding out on Sept. 11 that he was negative.
“By then, I was feeling good. I’d actually been feeling good when I had the test but wanted to err on the side caution because that’s what we’re asking parents and staff to do,” he added. “So, I didn’t think it was fair for it to be a different deal for me.”
