Schools are still safe despite higher absentee rates, says education minister

As Alberta students enter the third week back to in-person classes, Alberta’s minister of education maintains that schools are safe despite growing absentee rates.

In an exclusive interview with CityNews, Adriana LaGrange says while there have been some operational issues and a few classes have had to switch back to online learning, overall, she’s confident that schools are still safe.

“We have 15 out of 2,415 schools that have had to transition to online learning. Many of those schools are very small schools with less than 30 students in them, and of course, it’s due to staff and student absenteeism and a lack of availability of substitute teachers. So, very much for operational issues,” she said.

“But, the vast majority of students are in-school, in-person learning. So, I would say [it’s going] relatively well. Of course, we’re seeing the effects of Omicron in our education system just like everywhere else in the province.”

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Some schools in Alberta and B.C. see slightly higher-than-usual absent rates

In-person learning resumed on Jan. 10, with some health experts cautioning the province not to move back too fast.

However, with physical classes resuming, Albertans are seeing more and more student-aged children getting, and spreading, the virus. More kids are being hospitalized with COVID-19 than in previous waves, and higher absentee rates are being reported in schools.

“Because we are not able to track COVID as we did in the past, it’s hard to say exactly why students and staff members are absent, but given the higher numbers of COVID cases throughout the whole province, it’s fair to assume that is having an impact,” she added.

Despite that, LaGrange doubled down on the safety measures schools are taking. She says she would have no problem sending her own kids or grandkids to school with the measures currently in place.

“I am a mother of seven children, and I’m a grandmother of seven. Yes, I would feel sending my children or my grandchildren to school would be the appropriate measure to take,” she said.

Read more:

• For some Canadian students, school disruptions have become routine

• Continued staffing shortages threaten to move more kids to online learning

• Staffing challenges force some classes to switch to online learning

“Given the fact we have so many measures in place and have had all along, our students were safe pre-COVID, they’ve been safe throughout COVID even when we didn’t have vaccines.”

She says the added benefit of vaccines has ensured students’ safety even more and now students need to go back to school as not having in-person classes has had a negative impact on their emotional and mental health.

“While there’s higher transmission happening throughout the whole province, we have to balance that with our children’s mental health and emotional social health as well,” LaGrange added.

“Our goal was always to keep students in the classroom, in-person learning as much as possible. For the vast majority of our schools and our students, they are in-person.”