Moose Jaw’s two school divisions have been preparing since June for the return of classes in September, but those plans are more tentative than concrete due to the ongoing pandemic.
Prairie South School Division (PSSD) and Holy Trinity Roman Catholic School Division had to submit their contingency plans to the Ministry of Education by June 30. Both organizations — along with the other 25 school divisions — also expect to receive more detailed guidance from the province’s chief medical health officer when the ministry returns their plans.
Prairie South School Division
“We are currently finishing our regular summer cleaning processes so that schools are ready to go in the fall. We have ordered materials for schools centrally and are moving them to school as they arrive. These include some PPE (personal protective equipment and) lots of hygiene and cleaning products … ,” explained education director Tony Baldwin.
Educators will also use a web-based content management system to teach, whether kids are at school or home, he added. This will allow the school division to adjust on the fly if needed.
Prairie South’s division office has ordered roughly 1,200 litres of hand sanitizer to kick off the year, while it doesn’t expect to need too many face masks since they will be used only in specific situations.
“… but generally speaking, we won’t be masked at school,” Baldwin said, adding if more is needed, a provincial tender is available to school divisions if their items are back-ordered or if they require more PPE in August. Usually, PSSD uses masks and gloves for specific situations with students or when working with dangerous materials.
Each school will have a PPE kit that staff can use if a student becomes ill, he continued. Students and staff who are symptomatic likely won’t be at school if sick, so PSSD’s need for PPE probably won’t be as high.
While Baldwin thought it was difficult to say what the budgetary effect would be to order additional PPE, he noted the division had ordered roughly $200,000 in extra supplies so far. Based on how the fall goes, that could be the total expense, or it might be the beginning.
Holy Trinity Roman Catholic School Division
The Catholic school division shared its draft plan with staff in late June, explained education director Sean Chase. Based on safety guidelines from the Saskatchewan Health Authority and Ministry of Education’s Response Planning Team (RPT), the division has incorporated measures for transportation, the cleaning of buildings, and personal hand hygiene. The schedules of staff and students will also be adjusted to limit exposure.
“Technology has been refreshed and increased to meet current needs, building upon the learnings of the distancing learning experience in the spring, and prepare for any distancing measures that may be invoked in the fall,” he said.
Holy Trinity has purchased “a significant amount” of PPE gear from several sources, including a large quantity of hand sanitizer from a local distributor, Chase continued. The division will make future purchases based on how the first few months go.
Meanwhile, the RPT has issued a provincial tender for PPE that closes July 31. Once it posts the list of qualified tenders, Holy Trinity can purchase additional materials if necessary.
“… we are (also) in close communication with our partners at Prairie South and Chinook School Divisions to align best practice in both procurement and deployment,” Chase continued. “We have also partnered with other large school divisions in the province should the need arise to capitalize on increased buying capacity.”
Besides the typical PPE supplies, the Catholic division has also researched other solutions to handle the coronavirus. This includes foggers for cleaning buses, Plexiglas partitions for high-traffic areas in schools, and portable hand-washing stations for schools. The division office will make its final decision on those once the RPT provides further guidance.
Chase was unsure of how much extra it would cost to purchase additional PPE material. However, Holy Trinity’s 2020-21 budget does allocate several hundred-thousand dollars to pandemic contingencies from money saved during the spring.
