Don’t believe everything you see on Facebook. Schools and the government aren’t going to take away your child if they test positive for COVID-19 in Flin Flon, contrary to recent posts that have concerned the Flin Flon School Division (FFSD).
A recent Facebook posting citing an apparent line item in a COVID-19 emergency response plan on “removal of children” has alerted the FFSD, which has sought to set the record straight locally.
The Facebook posting claims that an authorized COVID-19 officer could “remove a child from any premises, place, vehicle or vessel to a place of residence of the child or to a hospital or quarantine facility, as the authorised (sic) office thinks fit (and may, in doing so, use such force as is reasonably necessary.”
The plan cited in the post is not part of the FFSD plan, or for that matter any plan anywhere in Canada - the plan in the original post is a snippet of a regional COVID-19 plan for the Australian province of South Australia, selectively highlighted and cropped to hide certain qualifying information.
FFSD superintendent Tammy Ballantyne said she saw the post circulating online among people she knew and believed the correct information should be shown.
Under the most recent FFSD plan, issued August 17, all four schools under FFSD purview will have a specialized isolation room set aside in case a student or staff member in a school becomes ill in the building and can’t immediately leave.
If a person who has been in a FFSD school or a close contact of that person tests positive for COVID-19, they are to contact Ballantyne immediately, with Ballantyne then contacting public health officials to come up with a specialized plan and guidance for all involved, including contact tracing. School attendance records and visitor logs will be used to help track down people who may have possibly been exposed.
If a student presents with COVID-19 symptoms in a class, they are to be taken to the isolation room until an approved contact, signed off on by a parent or guardian, can pick them up and take them home. Creighton Community School (CCS), which operates under the Creighton School Division across the provincial border in Saskatchewan, has a plan similar to the FFSD plan.
“If students become sick while at school, they will be taken to the isolation room until a parent/guardian or emergency contact can come and pick them up. The school will not release students from isolation to anyone without expressed consent from a parent or guardian,” said Ballantyne.
Only one exception to the rule is expected - if Child and Family Services or the RCMP have to be called to the school. Those instances, which are rare and limited only to extreme student misconduct or immediate concern for a student’s wellbeing, will continue under similar protocol as before COVID-19.
“I think it’s important parents know they are only being kept in the isolation room if they have symptoms and only until they can be picked up by a parent/guardian or emergency contact that they have listed,” Ballantyne said.
