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School holidays will start early due to staffing shortages across province

A parent walks to small children to school along a snowy path
School holidays are getting an earlier start across Nova Scotia. Students will be on the winter break beginning this Friday, Dec. 17. Photo by Ed Halverson.
Ed Halverson - QCCR/CJQC - Liverpool • NS | 16-12-2021
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Students across Nova Scotia will enjoy an even longer December holiday as the province announced the break will start Friday instead of next Tuesday, Dec. 21.

Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development Becky Druhan says the decision was not based on public health direction but is designed to relieve staffing pressures.

“We're very grateful and pleased that Nova Scotians are following the public health directions to self-isolate when they’re close contacts. But some of those people are people who are in the school system and that means they’re unavailable to come in to teach, to support the school or to drive buses, if those are their roles. So, as a result of the numbers of people who are on self-isolation due to being close contacts, there are challenges with operating school," said Druhan.

The department announced just last week that students would return to class two days later than planned on Jan. 6.

The reasoning was to allow families to monitor students for COVID-19 before they return to school, for public health to assess COVID-19 in the province, and staff to undertake further professional development to support their teaching, while also allowing more time for families to book vaccination appointments for their children.

Druhan says the extra time will allow public health officials to make the best plans for a safe return to school.

“One of the reasons for that is about giving public health some additional time to be able to make a determination about the epidemiology and what the situation is and to ensure we have that time to have really good decisions around what measures need to be in place coming back.," said Druhan. "And so public health will be taking the time over the holidays to make those assessments. We’ll be working very closely with them to make sure that whatever new measures need to be in place when we come back in January are ready to go.”

The announcement to extend the school break comes as the province reports 178 new cases of COVID-19.

E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

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