Mountain View School Division (MVSD) is getting set to shed face masks in its 16 schools.
Effective Mar. 15, MVSD will no longer require the use of a mask in any of its facilities.
“We are following the provincial health mandate. The province has made the decision in the last round of public health order changes that a good number of the restrictions in schools would be scaled back or wound down,” MVSD superintendent/CEO Dan Ward said. “Certainly we encourage anyone, both staff and students who are more comfortable wearing a mask to wear a mask. So it’s certainly encouraged, but it’s no longer going to be required.”
Ward said when the changes to the provincial health orders were announced, the request from the province was that school divisions align their protocols with the new provincial health orders.
“And that’s always been the case. If you look back into many of the health orders or various reasons the public school system was exempt because we had to offer programming in a safe way,” he said. “But we’ve always mirrored public health orders as closely as possible.”
The division is also winding down a number of other pandemic related requirements.
“We’re also looking at easing up on things like social distancing and cohorting although that’s going to happen a little bit more gradually as we approach the spring break,” Ward said. “As of Mar. 15 the cohorts in Kindergarten to Grade six will no longer be required and when we’re looking at the easing of the cohort restriction we’re looking at school to school. Where putting cohorts together has been fairly difficult and where it’s had an impact on programming, those are the schools we’re going to be easing up. But where cohorts are working well, we recommended that schools continue to do that, at least for the time being.”
Ward said administrators will continue to be vigilant and are encouraging staff and students to self-disclose if they become infected with COVID. The division will continue to report weekly attendance on its website.
Attendance has been improving, Ward added.
“And our number of COVID cases continues to go down,” he said. “It’s not overly surprising because it reflects what’s happening in the province. But at the same time we have to be vigilant that if things do get bad again to work with public health to bring back any mitigation measures that public health deems appropriate.”
