Dear St. Paul Parents,
It is with a joyful heart that I welcome all our families back for another school year. The summer seemed to go very fast, and I hope it was filled with memory-making moments with family and friends. The staff have been eagerly preparing their classrooms to receive your children, and we look forward to celebrating our year as One Family, One Hope in Christ.
Mixed in with back to school excitement is, I’m sure, apprehension for how the pandemic will continue to play out in our society. I know that some families will have concerns for what life at school is going to be like for their child, and that is certainly understandable. The guidance from public health served BC schools well last year, and we will continue to trust and adhere to the provincial health and safety guidelines for K to 12 schools that have been updated for the 2021-22 school year.
In late August I participated in an informational webinar with Vancouver Coastal Health for all Principals in VCH. Some key takeaways that VCH provided were the following:
- Cluster sizes in schools last year never went beyond 2 to 3 people, even with the Delta variant.
- Children are less likely to get and spread COVID-19, and have a lower risk of serious outcomes.
- VCH is not seeing an increase in severe outcomes of confirmed cases.
- More damage was done by the restrictive societal measures in place last year, such as:
- Poor mental health
- An increase in household conflict
- Loss of connection to family and friends
- Increased use of substance abuse to cope
With schools being considered as low-risk sites for COVID-19 transmission, we are confident that with infection prevention and control measures in place, as per our newly created school Communicable Disease Plan, we can help create a safe environment by reducing the spread of communicable diseases like COVID-19.
For full details on the updated Health and Safety guidelines for K-12 Schools, please click here.
For the St. Paul School Communicable Disease Plan, please visit the home page of our school website, under the Principal’s welcome message.
More information came home last Friday in our back to school Moorehead Message. Please refer to it with for any further questions.
I thank you in advance for your attention to the various information that will come home from both the office and your child’s teacher as we start the year. We are ready, we are excited, and we are so happy to see you all!
Looking forward to a great year!
Yours in faith,
Maureen Moorehead.