Schools tend not to follow epidemiological safety recommendations / Article / LSM.lv

In the first two months of the school year, the school turned out to be an environment where the new coronavirus had spread on a large scale, sending not only a staff but also students with all families to home quarantine. In addition, it turns out that most often the restrictions imposed by the state are violated not by children, but by adults. This is not the best time for long face-to-face meetings, meetings in teachers’ rooms and joint excursions on a busy bus. However, schools tend to ignore these recommendations.

For 22 teachers and their families, the autumn break at Riga English Gymnasium ended with quarantine. After the face-to-face meeting, one of its visitors took a test and found out that Covid-19 was positive.

“Of course we have a bitter lesson. We have taken it into account [sapulces] we don’t do it anymore. This person still has no signs of the disease, “said Maija Kokare, director of Riga English Gymnasium.

The established distance recommendations were not followed elsewhere. “While the students are enjoying the autumn holidays, the teachers are actively working, planning further study work, but in their free time they are regaining their strength in the newly furnished teachers’ room.” Such a recording, together with a picture of six teachers in a rather narrow space, was published last week by Riga 41st Secondary School. There is no distance of two meters between teachers and no face masks. The school deleted this record. After several parents in the comments expressed confusion about it. “

“Respectively, when they are waiting for the next hour, it is a place for them to enter and sit down,” said Egils Romanovskis, the director of Riga Secondary School No. 41, acknowledging that the place is narrow. “Yes. Maybe they had come together unsuccessfully.”

At Riga Teika Secondary School, on Monday, October 26, a joint event was planned for all secondary school classes. Going to a show at the music house “Daile”. It was canceled shortly before noon on Monday, and, as the parents of the students reported to Latvian Television, the students received the news that it was not a school decision, but “due to external pressure”.

“It was because of external pressure. The State Education Quality Service was the external pressure.

They stated in such a strong text that it was not acceptable at the moment, that such events were taking place and that there were several classes together.

Had to cancel. Sorry, we canceled. Yes. We do not want problems, “said Guna Pudule, the director of Riga Teika Secondary School.

The State Education Quality Service (IKVD) learns about violations in schools both from calls and e-mails from agitated parents and from information published on the Internet by the schools themselves.

“We call for an evaluation of these measures, we call for an evaluation, because educational institutions are high-risk places. Everyone has to think about their own actions – am I going to take a coffee break? How many of us are there in one room? said Juris Zīvarts, Director of the IKVD Monitoring Department.

“In one room, if we can’t keep our distance with colleagues, then the mask could help, but we can’t consider our colleagues safe,” said Yuri Perevoshchikov, an epidemiologist at the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (SPKC).

Schools and teachers should set a good example for children and society.

“Sometimes, due to its workload, the staff does not think. Educators do not think about their own responsibility or, in fact, how relatively easy it is to transmit the virus. Without care, many people simply have to spend time in quarantine,” said Riga City Council Education, Director of the Culture and Sports Department Maris Krastins.

For the time being, the option of introducing fully distance learning also in 1-6. class stage is not considered. But such a scenario can be encouraged.

“This is the last option, the last scenario that would have been accepted in the world at all. The risks are not so pronounced as to take such a rather traumatic economic step,” said an SPKC specialist.

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