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The union representing public school teachers in Western Australia has launched an advertising blitz against the State Government, attacking its decision to reopen schools next week while citing safety fears over coronavirus.
Key Points:
- Parents have been encouraged to send children back to school in term two
- The Premier has cited national health advice but teachers are not convinced
- Catholic schools will only offer remote teaching for students up to year 10
In full page newspaper advertisements, the State School Teachers' Union (SSTU) of WA urged parents to keep their children home, despite Premier Mark McGowan and Education Minister Sue Ellery insisting schools were open for business and encouraging students to attend from next week.
The union said measures such as physical distancing could not be carried out in schools when classrooms were full.
"We therefore encourage parents to continue to keep their children at home, if they are in a position to do so," the advert read.
"This will help teachers to make schools as safe as possible for students and staff."
Ms Ellery told 6PR Radio she was disappointed with the content of the advertisement as it was not an accurate description of the advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee — comprised of the state, territory and national chief health officers.
"The advice has been from the beginning — and is now, because of the low risk of transmission — schools are safe for staff and students, and should stay open," Ms Ellery said.
"[Teachers] need to put their fear to one side for a few moments and stop and read the advice, and actually look at what has happened.
"If that public health advice was not sound, and was not correct for schools, then back in the second half of March when we had students at school, when our daily cases of confirmed positives were increasing, when there were no border closures, when we did not have the additional cleaning in place, back then we would have started to see student-to-student and student-to-teacher [transmission].
"And we did not. If you did not believe the advice at the beginning — and I can understand it may have appeared like a mixed message or inconsistent — if you didn't believe it at the beginning, you just have to look at the numbers and what happened since."
Private schools reverse tack, support classroom return
For the first three weeks of term two, at public schools, students will have three options: attend face-to-face lessons, stay home to learn online, or stay home to learn with hard-copy packs.
Some independent schools are now backing a return to class after previously advising children to stay home.
In a letter to parents, Guildford Grammar School said all families who felt comfortable sending their children to school could attend timetabled lessons.
The school said it had received confirmation from WA Chief Health Officer Andrew Robertson advising it was safe to do so.
Guildford said the advice was unexpected and acknowledged it was a shift from previous plans.
Hale School headmaster Dean Dell'Oro told Mix 94.5 Radio he also expected to see students back in the classroom.
The school planned to bring year 11 and 12 students back, along with pre-primary to year 2, with other year groups rotating attendance.
"The science is pretty clear — we should get students back," he said.
"What's the alternative? The mental health issues are pretty clear, recent studies have suggested there's a lot of things that are going to happen if we don't connect socially, so the science is pretty important here."
Earlier this week, Catholic Education WA advised all its schools would adopt remote learning from kindergarten to Year 10 for at least the first four weeks of term.
Parents would be able to keep their children at home or send them to school to be supervised while they attend online classes.
Premier warns 'very low risk' to staff, students
Mr McGowan has ramped up pressure on Catholic Education, including suggesting they offer partial school fee refunds to parents to compensate for a lack of in-class learning.
He said he hoped the decision to only offer remote classes would be reconsidered.
"We've made the decision about public schools on the best of health and the best of education advice," he said.
"The health advice is there is a very low … risk for staff and students by reopening schools."
Health minister Roger Cook acknowledged there was a great deal of anxiety in the community about schools.
"I think people should take a great deal of comfort and confidence from the medical advice that is being received, both nationally and locally, and that is schools remain a very low public health risk, both to children and to teachers," he said.
"The main risk in relation to the school environment is between the teachers.
"The low viral load on a lot of young people with this particular virus means the child-to-adult contraction is a very low occurrence.
"But I understand people are anxious and that's why we've said parents may choose whether they send their kids to school in this particular period of time."
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Topics: covid-19, infectious-diseases-other, respiratory-diseases, diseases-and-disorders, health, perth-6000, wa
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