Smestad primary school in Oslo has 90 infected students with corona in the last 14 days. Principal Anton Rygg wants homeschooling.
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– The infection started to rise with us when it started to rise in society 14 days ago, but this is much more than what we have been used to. These are shocking numbers that I have not encountered before. This is not even close to what I have experienced before. So the whole situation is a bit “wow”, says principal Anton Rygg.
He has worked at Smestad school since last autumn, but has worked at the Oslo school throughout the pandemic. Smestad school has 620 students divided into 1.-7. steps and a total of 120 employees. In the last two weeks, 15 percent of the students have been infected and 10 percent of the employees. That worries the principal.
Asked for action
– I have asked the authorities to initiate extra measures because I think it is a scary situation. The children do not get very ill, but I do not know what kind of home conditions or who the underlying conditions in the home, or where they will celebrate Christmas and possibly carry the infection to, says Rygg.
– In addition, I am concerned about the working environment of the employees, who have to work with the unvaccinated. It is our job to work with children and they are unvaccinated that we meet every day. They are clearly spreading the virus now, he adds.
Abc News wrote about the infection situation at the school first.
– Infectious pool
The primary school has decided to practice as at the yellow level, even though Oslo is green.
– We do not mix classes, hold the meter, do hand washing and we have canceled all gatherings before Christmas.
– Is it omikron infection we are talking about?
– It’s not omikron. We’re pretty sure of that. Then stricter measures would probably have been put in place. We feel we get good guidance that way. And we have been offered help, but there is not much help to give. We have few classrooms and high sickness absence among employees. In addition, there are not many on-call substitutes who want to work with us now. It’s like walking into a pool of infection, says Rygg.
–Believes holiday relocation will not solve anything
Earlier on Thursday, VG wrote that Minister of Education Tonje Brenna (Labor Party) says that Municipalities with high infection pressure can provide earlier Christmas holidays if the teaching is resumed. Rygg does not think that will help much at the school he is the principal of.
– We want to save both Christmas and to ensure an academic level for our students. Moving the Christmas holidays will only overturn a problem on AKS and SFO, which will then have to take over responsibility for the children where the infection will spread as now.
– Therefore, it would have made sense if we could run home school until Christmas. We have already drilled on that and then we would have gathered the students something academic before Christmas. Many are still at home now and we do not have a chance to follow them up, says Rygg.
– Goes for lye and cold water
The principal believes it is time to return to home tuition to ensure both the academic level for the students and a good working environment for the school’s employees.
– The few employees we have at work must be in the classrooms. It goes without saying that they are not allowed to follow up those who are at home at the same time. So the students who are at home go for lye and cold water professionally, but if we could have had home tuition we would have been able to follow up on everyone and not expose our employees to infection.
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