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Nearly 100 Grade 10 students from Ross Sheppard High School told to self-isolate after positive COVID-19 test

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Nearly 100 Grade 10 students from Edmonton’s Ross Sheppard High School have been told to self-isolate after someone from the school tested positive for COVID-19.

The school is one of four in the city where students or staff have tested positive for the virus since in-person learning began last week.

Anna Batchelor, a spokeswoman for Edmonton Public Schools, said the division was informed Monday by Alberta Health Services that someone had tested positive. Batchelor didn’t say whether that person was a student or staff.

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Health officials told approximately 96 Grade 10 students in three classes to get tested and self-isolate for 14 days and will be reaching out to anyone who may have been in close contact with the individual, Batchelor said in an email.

“The school called impacted students. The students will be supported with learning while they are required to isolate at home. The school will provide more information to these families soon,” she said, adding that the school underwent a deep clean before students returned to classes Tuesday.

Also in Edmonton, a staff member at Archbishop MacDonald High School has tested positive. Edmonton Catholic School Division spokeswoman Lori Nagy said the test result came back Saturday and a note was sent to parents Monday.

Nagy couldn’t say how many people have been identified as being in close contact with the staff member, referring those questions to AHS. Health officials weren’t able to provide an update as of press time.

On Friday, one case was confirmed at both Louis St. Laurent Junior/Senior High School and École Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc, according to a list compiled by the advocacy group Support Our Students Alberta.

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At least 20 Alberta schools have reported cases of COVID-19 since students across the province started returning to classrooms a week ago, the list says.

At her briefing Tuesday, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said there were 11 cases in 11 different schools where a sick person was present at school while infectious though she acknowledged that number could go up as more information from investigations comes in. None of the 11 cases acquired the infection at school, she said.

There are currently 1,692 active COVID-19 cases in Alberta, the most since May 9.

Hinshaw said it’s too early to evaluate whether the province’s model for opening schools is working but that the current situation is not unexpected.

“We will be watching closely, and if our community transmission continues to rise we may need to look at other models in certain high transmission areas,” she said.

“But we want to make sure we’re giving every opportunity for students to have a successful return to school with everything we can provide in this model, before we accept some of the risks that would come with any alternate model.”

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NDP education critic Sarah Hoffman said having to send kids home into isolation in a matter of days has created a “teeter-totter” for families.

“Parents who were counting on their child being at school during the day have their life in limbo,” she said.

Hoffman called for daily ongoing public reporting of school cases for transparency.

Under the current system, parents are informed when there is a single positive case at their child’s school. Health officials have set a minimum of five cases before publicly declaring an outbreak online.

Hinshaw said the government is working on a new website specifically for cases linked to schools. Along with information about larger outbreaks, she said the site could name schools or provide aggregated data by area when there are fewer than five cases.

Boards take different approaches to substitute teachers

Meanwhile, the Edmonton Catholic School Division has written into its contracts with substitute teachers that they can only work for that district this year.

The Alberta government is not requiring any restrictions on substitute teachers that would limit where they could work but Nagy said approximately 650 substitutes have been assigned to specific schools where they could work with any grade throughout the year.

“We want to provide someone into a school that has not been to a number of different schools to try to keep that cohort integrity,” Nagy said.

Edmonton Public is following the province’s lead and is not restricting supply teachers at this time, Batchelor said.

“We are encouraging schools to create designated substitute lists, to help limit the number of supply teachers entering a school,” she said.

– with files from Lisa Johnson

ajoannou@postmedia.com

twitter.com/ashleyjoannou

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