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Canada’s Next Front-line Fight Is The Classroom. Are Teachers Ready?

Teachers and students are preparing to go back to school in September amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Teachers and students are preparing to go back to school in September amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

As teachers prepare to be the new front-line workers in the COVID-19 pandemic, many say they don’t feel their school reopening plan is safe.

In response to a callout, HuffPost Canada heard from over 100 teachers about their feelings on their province’s back-to-school plans.

Many teachers are concerned about their own health; some have updated their wills, or consulted their doctors about the risks of returning to school. Many are also frightened of passing the virus on to older family members, or of students or their families becoming sick.

Still, most teachers acknowledge the benefits of going back to school: Children need socialization, and school will give them a routine and a sense of structure to their days. But while many say the face-to-face instruction will be beneficial for students, they still warn that rushed back-to-school plans could have disastrous consequences.

Ontario teachers feel left in the dark

Just over two weeks before the start of the school year, Sunita Albuquerque still doesn’t know if she’ll be teaching in-person or online.

The teacher of 22 years is immunocompromised and her husband has a serious heart condition. She submitted a medical accommodation document to the Toronto District School Board, but hasn’t heard back yet about where she’ll be teaching — or which grade — when classes start in September.

Sunita Albuquerque has been a teacher for 22 years. She said she feels at risk teaching right now.
Sunita Albuquerque has been a teacher for 22 years. She said she feels at risk teaching right now.

“It’s all really muddled and up in the air right now,” she told HuffPost Canada. “For those of us who’ve had medical notes, we don’t know what the online option is going to be. We don’t know if we will be sent back into the classroom.”

Before now, Albuquerque says, teachers have largely avoided the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. But now, approaching a semester that’s expected to include — or at least begin with — in-person instruction, some won’t have a choice about returning to school.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt so vulnerable and so much at risk in my whole life

Albuquerque has been...

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