Alberta parents, schools calling on province to implement more COVID-19 rules in classrooms

After only one week of school a six-year-old tested positive for COVID – and it was up to his mom to report it to the school. Sarah Chew talks to moms who don’t feel safe sending their kids to school.

By Kayla Butler

Posted Sep 17, 2021 10:24 am.

Last Updated Sep 17, 2021 11:09 am.

EDMONTON – Parents in Alberta say they don’t feel safe sending their kids back to school without further government mandates, like mandatory masks for students below Grade 4.

Danielle Clark says her six-year-old son tested positive for COVID-19 after going back to school for only one week.

“One of the most frustrating parts is that he was one of the only children in his class who actually wore a mask. Many of them weren’t. And so I’m frustrated that we took all the steps that we were supposed to take, we followed the rules and we still ended up with COVID because other people cannot be bothered. The government can’t be bothered to mandate it,” Clark said.

“How many times are we going to do this? How many times are we going to have, either our children sent home, isolated, missing weeks of school at a time? How long until they shut the school down again and they send them all home for online learning?”

Edmonton public schools director Trisha Estabrooks said in a press interview that without support from Alberta Health Services, schools don’t have an accurate picture of COVID-19, leaving a number of positive cases undetected.

She says schools and parents have been flying blind.

“So, what we are calling on the government to do is to reinstate contact tracing, to inform us when there are positive cases of COVID in our schools, as well as to put back in place the quarantine measures when there are close contacts with positive covid cases in our schools,” said Estabrooks.

Emily Mackenzie says that contact tracing prevented her family from spreading the virus when her four-year-old son caught the virus from preschool.

“Once it came into our house, it did not spread anywhere else. And that wouldn’t have been possible without contact tracing. Like no matter how responsible we are, we don’t have the tools to stop the spread if we don’t know what’s happening or where it is in the communities,” explained Mackenzie.

On the government of Alberta website, it says, “school authorities continue to have the ability and the corresponding accountability to put in place local measures that may exceed provincial guidance.”

But schools and parents are calling for more from the province.

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