EXCLUSIVE: Although No Longer Required, Vancouver Secondary Students Will Be Wearing Masks After Spring Break
Photo by The Griffins’ Nest
Editor’s Note: The COVID-19 Special Reporting Team is comprised of editors Hannah Azad, Erika Chung, Spencer Izen, Jessica Kim, Stephen Kosar.
“When K to 12 schools return from spring break, masks will no longer be required for students, staff and visitors,” reads a March 10 press release from the Ministry of Education. “The decision to wear a mask or face covering is a personal choice for everyone.”
But despite the province’s move to lift the mask mandate in BC’s schools, most Vancouver secondary students who talked to The Nest will opt to continue wearing them.
The Nest asked Grade 8-12 School District 39 students to write to the publication regarding how they feel about the mandate’s removal in an intake form. 76 responded.
51 of 76, or 67 per cent, called for a mask mandate to be reinstated, and 68 of 76, nearly 90 per cent, said they will be wearing a mask upon return from Spring Break come Monday.
Students were given the option to remain unnamed. Roughly half of those who wrote were from Eric Hamber Secondary, which was expected given The Nest is a club of the school. The remaining half was distributed across 15 district secondary schools.
“I have [family members] and friends who are high-risk, so it makes me feel safer around those people to keep wearing a mask,” wrote Amy Edwards, a Grade 10 student at Vancouver Technical Secondary.
“It is the best thing to do to keep everyone I come in contact with safe,” wrote Jaya Wood, a tenth grader from Hamber.
Dozens of students echoed their sentiments. Interest in protecting others, especially at-risk contacts, was chief among students’ masking motivations. Many students had a lot at stake with the spread of the virus, living or in frequent contact with immunocompromised individuals such as parents and grandparents.
Maya Bronwyn Alexandra, a Grade 10 Vancouver Technical Secondary student, shared that her living arrangement is divided between time with her immunocompromised mom and baby brother and time with her dad who lives with chronic bronchitis. “I have a lot to lose if I get COVID and transmit it to anyone,” Alexandra confessed.
Even if students did not have high-risk friends or family members, a sense of social conscience was common amongst respondents who shared they would be wearing a mask at school. They were concerned about people they encounter on transit, in grocery stores, or in other public spaces. One student noted that “Masks are so easy to wear and help stop the spread so why wouldn’t you wear them?”
Many expressed worries about the crowded indoor school environment. Sondor Ganduulga, a Grade 11 student at King George Secondary, highlighted the “huge and crowded” classes and hallways of their school. Students from other schools across the District corroborated the phenomenon of crowding in their hallways and classrooms.
“Having students that are both unvaccinated and not wearing masks will definitely make me feel unsafe because school is crowded,” wrote another student.
Owen Menning, a Grade 12 student at Eric Hamber Secondary, pointed out the lack of safety measures at his school, citing poor ventilation and the inability to socially distance as major safety concerns.
Others wrote that they will be wearing masks out of habit and expect others to do the same. One student “has gotten so used to wearing a mask that it just feels best to wear one.” Over the past 2 years, students have become accustomed to both wearing a mask and seeing other people wearing masks. One student expressed that it was “awkward to see other people’s faces.” Another student expressed that they were “insecure about [their] face and masks help with that.”
The timing also proved as a stressor for students, with students having the choice to attend school maskless immediately after spring break. One student noted that many “will be coming back from travelling,” going on to note it would be safer to keep masks mandatory.
Those that opposed the mandate frequently cited the notion of “personal choice.” Some students expressed they are simply tired of the pandemic.
“I think it’s important that as long as we realize that masks are an act of compassion, students are given a choice. It’s really what you feel comfortable with,” Eloise Ramslie, a Grade 9 student at Eric Hamber voiced. Another unnamed student wrote, “I don't think they are all that helpful anymore, and they do have downsides – difficulty communicating for example.”
When students arrived at the general use portion of the intake form that encouraged them to share anything else related to COVID-19, multiple students took the opportunity to highlight a “student [and] teacher nightmare caused by a lack of foresight and public consultation,” referring to the semester system.
“The guidelines are disappointing. We always lift the guidelines, and then a spike of cases emerges and then the guidelines are back. It’s a cycle we’re stuck in,” Sondor Ganduulga, expressed. Jonathan Tang at Sir Winston Churchill suggested “Consulting teachers and students – those bearing the weight in the forefront – would be a good place to start.”
One week after the Ministry’s announcement, the BC COVID-19 Modelling Group issued its nineteenth report, warning that while the COVID-19 situation is more stable than earlier in the year, the province is not yet in the clear.
“While the COVID-19 situation is good and improving, BC faces a number of short-term risks,” listing a rise in the BA.2 subvariant, relaxation of mandated public health measures such as masking, and waning immunity as concerns to be monitored.
Multiple experts have warned of the next COVID wave throughout the past month. Sarah Otto, a Canada Research Chair in Theoretical and Experimental Evolution and member of the independent modelling group, told the Times Colonist on March 19 that there will likely be a rise in cases during the spring, albeit less widespread than the previous Omicron wave.
On March 20, the Safe Schools Coalition BC issued a call for universal masking in K-12 schools in an open letter directed to all stakeholders in education, including trustees.
Failure to reinstate masking requirements put “children and families at risk and is breaking a basic tenet of public schools – that ALL children have the right to access an education,” the group wrote.
They go on to mention that the lifting of restrictions, combined with lack of alternatives to in-person schooling “creat[es] an impossible situation for higher risk families, including those who are immunocompromised or live in multi-generational households.”
The group also urged educators to be concerned about Long-COVID being developed by students or their contacts.
“Preventing COVID-19 from spreading readily through schools will also prevent currently healthy children (or their parents) from developing Long-COVID. Long-COVID in both children and adults is well-documented in other countries like the UK and the USA, and is likely as prevalent in BC.”
“Study after study [shows] that COVID-19 is a vascular disease, not a respiratory one, and that it results in damage to the brain, heart, lungs, nerves, and other organs, even after mild cases," the group said in the letter.
Kyenta Martins, the coalition’s spokesperson, told Global News on Friday that “we are seeing students and families that are at risk, who are very concerned about putting their students back into a classroom where there are very few precautions or protections in place…Masks really [were] our one true protection, and that’s been removed.”
The coalition called on policy-makers to “continue the mask mandate for this school year, so that all children can be safer from the BA.2 variant as well as future variants. SFU Professor June Francis even suggested that failing to do so in a public school situation is discriminatory and could be a human rights violation.”
“Nova Scotia has now extended their school mask mandate; BC can too.”
Also mentioned was an American study funded by the US National Institute of Health that found masking significantly reduced the number of cases in schools over a previous variant’s surge.
“Schools with mandatory masking during the Delta surge had approximately 72% fewer cases of in-school transmission of SARS-CoV-2 when compared to schools with optional or partial masking policies,” reads a media advisory published the same day the Ministry of Education dropped its masking policy. “The study included more than 1.1 million students and over 157,000 staff attending in-person school across nine states: North Carolina, Wisconsin, Missouri, California, Washington, Georgia, Tennessee, Kansas and Texas.”
“For every 100 community-acquired cases, universally masked districts had 7.3 predicted secondary infections, while optionally masked districts had 26.4,” researchers found.
Researchers also noted that their study did not examine the impact of masking on the Omicron surge, as it was not the dominant variant at the time. But, they also advised, “masking remains a critical preventive measure in times with high community infection rates with more transmissible variants, such as Omicron.”
All provinces but Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador have either lifted or will lift their mask mandates in schools. Some provinces, such as Alberta, have not had a mandate since mid-February. Most, however, still encourage masks in indoor settings where social distancing is not practical.
Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith pointed out in a March 25 column that immunocompromised students are being put in a tough situation, echoing what the students themselves told The Nest. Among his list of those who are “failing” immunocompromised students are school trustees.
“B.C. school trustees are showing no eagerness to introduce motions to reinstate the mask mandate in their districts, even though they have a legal right to do this as employers. Not one Vancouver trustee has responded to the Straight's emailed question on this topic, which was sent two weeks ago."
Many have suggested that in order to uphold the inclusivity and accessibility BC’s education system prides itself on, adopting policies requiring universal masking in schools is necessary to protect and accommodate immunocompromised students, their close contacts, and the broader population.
Early on in the school year, the Vancouver School Board earned praise for being the first school district in BC to extend a mask mandate to all K-12 students. Previously, K-3 students were not required to wear masks while attending school.
The Nest reached out to Vancouver School Board trustees regarding their stance on masking and were shown a quote from a student with substantial concerns about going to school for the safety of their immunocompromised mother and elderly grandmother. Trustees were also asked to respond to students’ and BC Safe School’s call for a mandate to be reinstated and if they wanted to comment on failing to respond to the Straight.
“As educators, we know this lifting of restrictions may feel sudden and unexpected for many school community members. Staff throughout the District will continue reminding everyone to be kind and compassionate as we navigate this change and about the importance of continuing to be respectful of the personal choices that each individual may make regarding mask use,” Patrica Macneil, the District’s Director of Communications, told The Nest in reply.
“We are confident that when staff and students return to school next week, individual choices they make about mask-wearing will be honoured and respected.”
Macneil also told the Nest “information” was provided to the Straight on March 11, but didn’t specify what.
“[O]f course, I have been considering what should be done regarding mask mandates in Vancouver schools,” Trustee Barb Parrott wrote. Parrott was the only trustee to follow up on The Nest’s email.
Parrott confirmed she always reads publications from Safe Schools BC, saying “their [information] often helps shape my thinking.”
Parrott also said that the Board doesn’t have a meeting in March, it will have to wait until their next sitting, which “is not until the end of April,” to make any decision regarding masking.
Board policy does permit special meetings to be called outside of scheduled sessions, and one could theoretically be called to make a decision on masks. However, there are currently no indications that such a special meeting will take place.