The Saskatchewan NDP are calling for a plan to get vulnerable kids, with compromised immunity, back to school safely.
This from NDP Education Critic Carla Beck, who was joined Friday morning by Krysta Shacklock, a Saskatoon mother with an immunocompromised daughter.
Shacklock’s daughter is recovering from cancer, and she has concerns with the absence of a clear plan from the provincial government. She wants the government to pay closer attention to every individual in society, adding just because the healthy population can get together, it doesn’t mean other aspects of the population aren’t getting left behind.
Shacklock is also the founder of the Saskatchewan Immune Compromised Families group, who recently collected over 1,100 signatures, for a petition to the ministry of education, many of which were from concerned parents and teachers.
Carla Beck says the provincial government’s current guidelines for a return to Saskatchewan schools only plans for the best-case scenario. She says parents want to send their children back to school in the fall, but they haven’t seen a plan from the government that will lead them to believe that it’s possible to do so safely, especially she says, in light of the province seeing a spike in cases of COVID-19 and the government falling behind on testing.
The NDP says other provinces including Nova Scotia have released more robust plans, that include additional funding and details on blended learning or full learning from home.
(CJWW)