Protesters take aim at BSD

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This article was published 28/08/2020 (1970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Calling the COVID-19 safety measures planned for local schools inadequate, a group of approximately eight people came together Thursday to give the Brandon School Division a piece of their mind.

“If these are the people in charge of our education, I’m surprised my children can read,” said protester Elliott Oleson, who brought his 10-year-old twins to the event, at which all participants wore masks and made efforts to physically distance during their march from Brandon City Hall to the school division offices.

Even though he has his school-age nieces and nephews in mind when he calls for stronger safety measures, protest organizer Donovan Sliziak said the decision to reopen schools “affects all of us as a city.”

“If the parents have health conditions and the kids go to school and it’s all crowded, there’s the chance of bringing it home to them and getting them infected.”

Protesters at Thursday’s Safe Restart Brandon Rally came armed with a few key criticisms, but their chief concerns related to the physical distancing of students and their desire to see the use of masks more strongly mandated.

In a conversation with the Sun on Thursday, Supt. Marc Casavant outlined the latest regulations in place to accompany students when they return to school in a couple of weeks.

Students in grades 4 to 12 must wear a mask when physical distancing of at least two metres is not possible, during which they must limit close contact with their peers to class-sized cohorts and maintain a distance from each another of at least one metre. Further, he said Grade 3 students in multi-grade classrooms with older students must wear a mask and all students must wear masks on buses.

All other students can wear a mask “if their parents want them to.”

“If two metres is the minimum requirement for it to be safe, what does one metre accomplish?” Oleson asked, referencing the generally accepted message from medical professionals that says at least two metres of spacing between people must be maintained. “It’s window dressing. It doesn’t make sense in the context of what we know.”

Protesters also pushed for increased funding to expand remote learning opportunities so more students can learn from home.

Casavant said that kindergarten to Grade 8 students will be expected to maintain 100 per cent in-class attendance, while those in grades 9 to 12 will attend school in person every second day, except for those in Prairie Hope High School, who will be required to physically attend school every day.

There will be remote learning accommodations made for students who have “medically advised doctor notes to say they’re not able to be in schools,” he added. The same can apply if an immediate family member of a student has a medical condition that puts them at risk and their doctor advises the student against attending school.

Underpinning much of the protesters’ criticism was the fact the Brandon School Division falls under a Code Yellow designation from the province, which highlight the measures being taken to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

They argued in favour of the more restrictive Code Orange designation, which the Prairie Mountain Health region has been placed under with some exceptions, such as area schools.

As of Thursday, more than half of the province’s active cases of COVID-19 were in Prairie Mountain Health, with 212 of 407 active cases recorded in the Westman health region. Of these cases, 126 were in Brandon.

Casavant said the school division is simply following the province’s health orders.

“Manitoba Ed(ucation) creates a reopening of schools plan, and the chief medical officer puts a number of health orders in place that school divisions have to comply with,” he said.

“Health orders are legally bound, so the quick answer is I don’t see that we have any ability to say no.”

The school division might have to follow mandatory minimum guidelines outlined by the province, but Oleson argued they could do more if they wanted to.

“They can determine a dress code for the schools, they can determine what is appropriate and what is inappropriate behaviour — they can set their own policies on absolutely everything, but in this one area …” he said.

“Is he saying they’re doing the least they can do? Can they do more and they’re choosing not to?”

Another concern among protesters was with the schools’ ventilation systems, which Casavant said are now operating at increased air volume as per guidelines outlined in the province’s Restoring Safe Schools document released June 25.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB