And while the guidelines have to take a wait and see approach on masks, what are they saying about classroom sizes, and how many students can be in a classroom at once for it to be COVID-safe?
The Minister says that when class sizes get too large, they may have to switch to a shift system:
Jules Vasquez- Reporter
"Classroom sizes, we know that many primary schools are over 40, some private schools as well are over 30 per class. Will there be a limit on the number of students in a class and how does that relate to social distancing?"
Hon. Patrick Faber- Ministry of Education
"We believe that most of the schools, in fact you are right, some of them have 30 or 40 students in a class room. And we will try our best to abide by whatever regulations exist. As it stands today, we can have up to 40 persons in a room but you have to have the adequate physical distancing. But if we find that that situation is not possible in a particular school, that is when we will make alternative plans. And those alternative plans that we've discussed range from possibly having a shift system. And that shift system could mean that we have children come to school on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and some on Tuesday and Thursday or it could mean children come one week and then another set of children come another week and then we subsidize this with the home based learning that we have become accustomed to. There are some critics who criticize that this is not effective but to me it is better that we do that and some face to face learning as opposed to just leaving our children unattended running wild at home without any kind of learning opportunity."
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