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Holy Family staff, SHA have done “an amazing job” of dealing with COVID

The administrators, staff and the Saskatchewan Health Authority have all done “an amazing job” so far in dealing with cases of COVID-19 in Holy Family schools, the board of trustees heard at their virtual monthly meeting on Wednesday evening.
Holy Family

The administrators, staff and the Saskatchewan Health Authority have all done “an amazing job” so far in dealing with cases of COVID-19 in Holy Family schools, the board of trustees heard at their virtual monthly meeting on Wednesday evening.

Education director Gwen Keith noted that three Holy Family schools have had to deal with COVID so far. While there haven’t been any cases at their two Estevan schools, St. Mary’s School and Sacred Heart School/Ecole Sacre Coeur, there have been cases elsewhere.

“I have to commend the staff and our principals have done an amazing job, and I would like to commend the health department in being able to work quickly and briskly, in a way that will allow us to understand what manpower we will have in dealing with a classroom or two,” she said, adding that the communications with the parents is also a major key to dealing with it.

“We have a highly complex communication process that involves the children that are within that classroom, any staff such as teachers or EAs, anyone who may have been affected, and staff in the whole school, any visitors to the school, and answer any questions that’s involved,” she said.

The contact tracing has to let anyone know who may have come into contact, such as any visitors to the school or class, plus answer the questions of parents of the school as they seek to find out answers.

“It’s like a big spider web, but it’s a very efficient one,” said Keith, adding that busing is another aspect if the student involved rides on one, as they have to look at the seating arrangements and attendance on the bus.

“Parents are pretty mindful of the COVID rules and restrictions,” said Keith, adding Holy Family has also received funding to enable them to have remote teacher leads at every school. This enables a classroom to quickly be able to go into remote learning in the event a classmate has been diagnosed with COVID.

“We calmly and strategically work through the process to keep everybody safe,” she added. “We continue to refine our process and keep learning as we go.”

“I’m amazed how quickly a school goes into action,” said board chair Bruno Tuchscherer, and trustee Jerome Sidloski agreed, noting “it’s critical” that the right information is getting to the parents right away. He added he gets questioned almost on a bi-weekly basis by one of the parents about what is going on.

While he isn’t able to lay it all out like Keith can, Sidloski said the cut-and-dried way they’re able to lay it all out makes it very easy for him to tell parents, “Don’t worry, we’ve got this.”

Keith said the system that’s set up is very efficient, and process isn’t very complicated.

“I was at St. Olivier (in Radville) recently and the principal said this is not that hard to do at all. We had a similar situation at St. Michael. We’re just trying to take care of people, and keep education moving as quickly as we can, as normally as we can,” she said, noting the schools all have protocols and procedures that they’ve been practising, just like fire drills, to the point they know what to do.

Keith noted that the school divisions have regular updates with the province on COVID, and the chief medical health officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab often sits in on those conference calls.

“We get this information directly, and we can ask him straight questions,” said Keith, noting the issue of vaccinations has come up in these discussions also.

“What we’re trying to do is to make these environments as safe as we can. As we go into the fall and budget, we still have to make sure of the physical safety of our schools are intact,” she added, including ensuring they have enough PPE for the staff so there isn’t any anxiety about how safe the schools are.

“Seeing as it was in our area, I was totally impressed with how it was handled,” said Radville trustee Teresa Van De Sype. “Give yourselves a pat on the back, because as far as I’m concerned it was done great.”