Confirmed case of COVID-19 linked to Macaulay Elementary in Victoria timescolonist.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timescolonist.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
“In October, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced that they would be allowing some international students to come into Canada,” said superintendent Scott Stinson. “The proviso was that only institutions that had a readiness plan in place would be able to welcome international students. “B.C. was one of the jurisdictions where that was the case.” Stinson said that having international students is a source of revenue, and some districts count on it more than others. “We’re not overly reliant on it,” he said. “We made a conscious decision this year that we weren’t going to make significant program decisions on a one-year potential blip.”
Both schools need significant seismic upgrades and have been designated as high-priority risks. “It’s been a very long conversation with lots of differences of opinion,” said Greater Victoria School District superintendent Shelley Green. “Neither school is in very nice shape.” Four options for the two sites are under consideration: • Complete seismic upgrades for Shoreline and Craigflower. • Upgrade and expand Shoreline and reconfigure it for kindergarten-Grade 8, leading to the closure of Craigflower. • Complete a seismic upgrade for Shoreline and do no improvements to Craigflower. • Complete a seismic upgrade for Craigflower and do no improvements to Shoreline. The Songhees and Esquimalt Nations are very interested in the prospect of having younger children at the same school as their older siblings, said Green, adding the First Nations also want to talk about moving Indigenous languages back into Shoreline, Craigflower and Esquimalt High Scho
With a COVID-19 vaccine still some time away for many people, the president of the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association is calling for enhanced preventive measures in schools. “We’re looking . . .
The Greater Victoria School District said it has not received any notification from health authorities that the school’s operations would be affected. “If we were notified by [public] health of any risks or an exposure to school staff and students, we would take the appropriate steps as advised by public health,” the district said in a statement. Island Health also reported a COVID-19 exposure at Chemainus Secondary School. The exposure, which means a single person with COVID-19 was at the school while infected, happened on Monday. A notification does not necessarily mean that anyone else will be affected, and public-health personnel will determine who the close contacts are.