With students set to return to classrooms next month, teachers held a rally on Saturday to renew calls for stronger COVID-19 safety measures in B.C. schools.
Lizanne Foster, a Surrey teacher who is part of the Safe Schools Coalition, said concern continues to grow among teachers and parents amid B.C.’s fourth wave.
“If it’s possible at all to feel even more worried than we were last year, because the Delta variant is really a far more dangerous threat,” she said ahead of Saturday’s rally. “Last year we had some sense of what was needed in the classroom to keep us safe. But this year we have evidence of our experience about what’s needed.”
The group is calling for better ventilation systems and remote learning options when classes return this fall. It is also calling for mandatory masks.
“We’re reading between the lines of everything that the public health officer says and we are really concerned that there’s not going to be a mask mandate,” Foster said.
BC Teachers’ Federation president Teri Mooring was among those in attendance at Saturday’s rally, which took place outside the Vancouver Art Gallery.
A handful of anti-maskers tried to disrupt the rally but were countered by the protesters.