An outbreak was declared at an Okotoks school last week - however it was under a different name than one might think.
“In the public health act, schools have to report to Alberta Health Services when their absent rate or sickness for unknown reasons is above 10 per cent,” said Jordan Rhodes, Kindergarten to Grade 9 Westmount School principal on Sept. 17. “We had that earlier this week and they labelled us as outbreak of respiratory illness, not specifically COVID.
“We will be labelled that for two weeks, but it doesn’t bring any further restrictions upon us.”
Foothills School Division announced last week there were 34 cases at its schools as of Sept. 17.
Rhodes said while there have been COVID cases, he cannot put a firm number on how many at his school, as the Province is no longer doing contact tracing.
“We are not informed like we were last year,” Rhodes said. “We are 100 per cent reliant on parents to tell us the status of their kids. There is information we are missing for sure... on the flip-side of that we can’t share out as much information as we did last year due to privacy. It’s frustrating and it is frustrating for students and parents."
Rhodes has been sending letters to parents to keep them informed as much as possible. He would like a bit more input from parents, if possible.
He updated parents on Sept. 17 in a letter.
“One of the challenges under the current health guidelines that we are facing is a lack of information. We are no longer informed by Alberta Health Services when a student tests positive for COVID-19 or any other illness,” Rhodes wrote on Sept. 17. “We are also limited in the personal health information we can share out to families, students and staff. It would help us greatly to understand what we are experiencing if, when you are excusing your child from school, you would indicate the reason why they will not be present. You do not need to provide personal health information for your student, just a simple “sick” or “appointment” reasoning will be beneficial.”
Westmount is the lone school in the Foothills division on outbreak status as of Sept. 17.
The division mandated that all students in the division wear masks on Sept. 3, the same day Premier Jason Kenney stated masks must be worn in all indoor public places. Schools were not part of that mandate.
However, Kenney added further restrictions on Sept. 15, including that masks be worn by all Grade 4 to 12 students in common areas, excepting certain activities such as physical education, singing and others. As well, elementary students must be in cohorts.
Rhodes was glad to hear the Premier’s announcement, as it gave some teeth to the division’s decision.
“Absolutely,” Rhodes said. “It gave some authority – it’s something that is required, not something that we are suggesting. We are really trying to be respectful of individual health choices of families. The Province took back some responsibility that it downloaded on schools in terms of keeping the whole student body safe.”
Chris Fuzessy, Foothills superintendent of schools, said the 34 cases reported may be low.
“Those cases are all self-reported,” Fuzessy said. “There may be other cases, there may not be, because contact tracing was removed – we are not being made aware unless a family or staff member has made us aware.”
The division has opted to report cases to the school community despite contact tracing being removed.
“This is how we operated last year,” Fuzessy said. “We know there are members of our community who would like to know that information.
“We have also received mixed reviews in sending those letters out. We are developing a dashboard that people will be able to opt in either by school or a couple of schools.”
A Christ the Redeemer Catholic Schools press release on Sept. 19 stated the division is monitoring the situation.
"We are monitoring attendance rates and COVID cases reported by parents daily," the release said. {At present, no schools in Okotoks or area are above 10 per cent illness rates.
"However, one school exceeded those rates in the past two days and AHS is investigating. If AHS declares an outbreak, a letter will be sent to parents from AHS."
