Falkland School Safety Plan – Reminders

Dear Parents;

Click here to access our Site Specific Safety Plan posted late August. In mid October, our district wide Health Check Form changed.

Click here to access our communication on masks. This letter was sent home to accompany masks provided by SD83 on two separate occasions.

While nothing has changed with regard to our safety protocols, we do wish to provide a few reminders for clarity and consistency of information:

1. Please ensure you are assessing your child’s health using the most recent Health Check Form each morning before sending them to school AND following the recommendations on the form if key symptoms are noticed.
2. As always, please keep your child home if they are unwell or have any symptoms of illness. Home is the best place for healing.
3. If keeping your child at home, please notify the office (by phone 250-379-2320 or email fal@sd83.bc.ca) of their absence and the reason for their absence. If you need to arrange late drop off or early pick up, please contact the office as well. If your child’s after school plans change, please notify the office before 1:30 PM so we can get a message to them.
4. At school, masks are still only required for all individuals in grade 6 and older in common places (eg. hallways and busses) where maintaining a physical distance of 6 feet from others not in the same cohort might be difficult. Masks are not required at anytime for students in grade k-5 at school. Mask wearing in classrooms remains a personal choice. SD83 has provided 2 reusable masks for all students. Disposable masks are available for students upon request. Please discuss your personal preferences for mask wearing with your child and ensure a plan is in place to care for them. Please contact your child’s classroom teacher or school Principal if questions or concerns arise.
5. Several strategies are in place to prevent cross cohort interactions. Students have been assigned a designated play area (by cohort) for before school as well as recess and lunch. Washroom practices and increased monitoring of movement throughout our school is in place to ensure students from different cohorts maintain a physical distance of 6 feet. Minimizing physical contact between individuals from the same cohort remains our focus. Our walkways (especially before school and after school) are for traveling only. Students are asked to keep moving on our pathway so there is space to physically distance between individuals from different cohorts.
6. Thank you parents for remaining outside of the child care space (including our playgrounds) from 8:00 – 2:30 PM. Please ensure that you are maintaining a physical distance of 6 feet from others when dropping off and picking up your child. If you need to access the school for any reason, please make an appointment in advance by calling the office.

Click here to access a guiding document for Public Schools from the BCCDC. It contains our most recent Health Check Form and information on mask wearing at school.

We will continue to notify our school community if changes to our school plan are made. Changes would be at the direction of the Ministry of Education based on information received from the Ministry of Health.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding as we do our best to ensure a safe and caring school environment.