St. Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen is call­ing on the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to is­sue com­pre­hen­sive di­rec­tives for school prin­ci­pals to treat with COVID-19. 

The MP says that she re­ceived sev­er­al calls from schools and wor­ried par­ents with­in her con­stituen­cy. The par­ents stat­ed that they were not be­ing in­formed through of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tions that their chil­dren were in con­tact with stu­dents who were ex­hibit­ing symp­toms and test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19. 

De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from the MP: 

MP for St. Au­gus­tine Khadi­jah Ameen is call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion and Health to is­sue com­pre­hen­sive di­rec­tives for school prin­ci­pals to treat with COVID-19. The call stems from nu­mer­ous calls from schools, and wor­ried par­ents with­in her con­stituen­cy and a news­pa­per ar­ti­cle in which the Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry School Prin­ci­pals’ As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA) pres­i­dent Car­lene Hayes, in­di­cat­ed that prin­ci­pals are not al­lowed to di­vulge in­for­ma­tion on covid pos­i­tive cas­es to par­ents even when their child may have been ex­posed. 

Ameen stat­ed that she re­ceived sev­er­al calls from par­ents of stu­dents at­tend­ing schools in her con­stituen­cy con­cerned that they were not be­ing in­formed through of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tions that their chil­dren were in con­tact with stu­dents who were ex­hibit­ing symp­toms and test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19. 

Ameen stat­ed that a bal­ance must be struck be­tween safe­guard­ing chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion and well­be­ing, and mea­sures to con­tain COVID-19. School at­ten­dance is im­por­tant not just for ed­u­ca­tion­al at­tain­ment, but al­so for so­cial in­ter­ac­tion and the well­be­ing of chil­dren and young peo­ple. How­ev­er, if there are no struc­tured guid­ance and poli­cies in these schools, the cas­es will in­crease at an un­con­trol­lable rate. 

Many par­ents are fear­ful of keep­ing their chil­dren at home at the ex­pense of their ed­u­ca­tion. If a child is sick, ab­sent, or quar­an­tined, there are no vir­tu­al class­es, the teach­ers do not send the work­plan or keep the par­ents in­formed of the school­work that was done. This has caused many par­ents to take the risk and send their child to school re­gard­less of symp­toms and class­mates’ and teach­ers’ ex­po­sure. 

Ameen stat­ed that since the re-open­ing of schools, the cas­es of Covid-19 has in­creased, and par­ents have been in a con­stant state of stress and con­fu­sion. The MP for St. Au­gus­tine is call­ing on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to ur­gent­ly re­view its pro­to­cols for deal­ing with covid pos­i­tive cas­es to in­clude in­form­ing par­ents of stu­dents on ex­po­sure, for ex­am­ple those shar­ing a desk are pri­ma­ry con­tacts of con­firmed or sus­pect­ed cas­es, to pre­vent fur­ther spread­ing of the virus.