Board chair of school district 57, Tim Bennett released some statements about schools opening up this coming fall.

The Ministry of Education announced the plans for a full return to classes for BC students this year.

He indicated some of the plans to keep kids safe when they return to school, including wearing masks and using cohorts to reduce contact, transmission rates and make for faster contact tracing.

“All students will be in school five days a week as it was prior to the pandemic,” Bennett added, “but interactions between students will primarily be between their learning group or bubble class.”

The cohorts or ‘learning groups’ will limit the number of students in middle and elementary schools to 60, and up to 120 students for secondary schools.

“We have a lot of other measures at our schools including limiting student contact, ensuring the buildings are cleaned and sanitized, promoting increased handwashing this is going to be magnified in September as we received additional funding from the ministry to support those increased cleaning measures.”

Education Minister, Rob Fleming also released further information regarding the Ministry’s decision to send students back to school.

Fleming also provided some options for parents and students if they choose to opt-out and not return this year, including homeschooling or ‘distant learning’.

SD57 will also be paying attention to the guidelines of the Provincial Health Officer, Dr.Bonnie Henry and will potentially be changing the safety measures depending on her advisories to come.