Nearly all students from K-12 to return to class following long weekend

EDMONTON — Nearly all students in Alberta from Kindergarten to Grade 12 will be heading back to the classroom following the long weekend.

Education Minister Adriana LaGrange says the only exclusion will be students in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, who will return to in-person learning the following week.

WATCH: Education Minister Adriana LaGrange and Dr. Deena Hinshaw outline the province’s plan for the return to in-class learning.

“The decision to temporarily move to at-home learning, province-wide, was made by Alberta education to help ease the operational pressures school divisions were facing due to the rising COVID-19 cases across the province,” LaGrange said. “At that time we were seeing large numbers of school staff and students in isolations.”

She says the move to at-home learning was a necessary one in order to preserve the remainder of the school year.

“The robust health protocols that have been in place in schools to keep our students and staff safe, will continue.”

She says the health protocols, in addition to vaccines, will provide an added layer of protection as everyone heads back to class.

LaGrange added rapid testing in Edmonton, Calgary, Grande Prairie, and Lethbridge will be another tool the province will be using in select schools to identify cases early.

“I’m pleased to say that, to date, close to 11,000 screening tests have been conducted in Edmonton and Calgary and with only 44 preliminary positive results in our schools.”

READ MORE: NDP Education Critic demands clarity, more support as province announces move back to in-person learning

Dr. Deena Hinshaw says that back in early May, there was an average of 60 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 children and youth each day, that number has since lowered to 31 per 100,000.

Hinshaw says case rates in school fall in line with the rise and fall of community transmission — and an easy example is looking at last January when the province returned to in-person learning.

“There were more than 2,000 active cases in Albertans age five to 19. Six weeks later there were just over 700 active cases in this same age group,” Hinshaw said. “We saw that decline in active cases, despite more than a month of in-person learning province-wide.”

She added, not coincidentally, this fell in line when active cases were falling across communities as well.

“As a part of continuing to reduce spread, extracurricular sports and recreational performance activities for children and youth will remain closed in high transmission areas of the province for the next several weeks,” Hinshaw added.