By rdnewsNOW staff

District cancels all out-of-province travel

Chinook’s Edge School Division shares COVID-19 update

Mar 12, 2020 | 4:52 PM

Kurt Sacher, Superintendent for Chinook’s Edge School Division, sent the following letter to staff and parents on Thursday:

We understand your concerns regarding this rapidly-changing global situation, and we want to emphasize that the health and safety of our students and staff is our top priority, as always. We take our direction from the Government of Alberta and Alberta Health Services, and they indicate the risk in Alberta remains low. Until such time as they revise that designation, we do not require schools to modify programming, including extra-curricular activities within the province, at this time. However, this could change at a moment’s notice.

We do advise parents to keep children home if they are showing any symptoms of being ill and, if this is the case, we advise you to contact Alberta Health Services to obtain their guidance on next steps. Teachers will provide support to catch students up once they are well and return to school. Our core business of teaching and learning continues in our schools, and support for continued learning will vary depending on the individual context in each classroom and situation.

For schools that have any travel scheduled, it is not business as usual. Yesterday our Board made the decision that all Board-endorsed student and staff out of country travel is cancelled immediately until April 30. Today, we informed schools that effective March 13, all out of province travel is cancelled until April 30.

We are advising our staff to pay particularly careful attention to any decisions they might be making to travel to another province or country during spring break. We encourage both our staff and our parents to refer to the following link with regards to travel advice. Government of Canada – COVID-19 Travel advice.

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We are closely monitoring how this situation is unfolding in Alberta and our schools. We know that our parents and staff have many questions. To that end, we have scheduled a daily meeting with the Central Office Leadership Team and will provide updates on any decisions or developments when necessary. To support this sharing of information, starting Monday, March 16th, further updates will be posted on our Division website.

We have a detailed Pandemic Plan ready to activate, should Alberta Health Services indicate it is time or that level of response. As always, our efforts are directed to supporting the health and safety of our students and staff.

Kurt Sacher,

Superintendent of Schools
Chinook’s Edge School Division