Although it is becoming more challenging to say that we are operating in a climate of ‘business as usual’,
I would like to assure all our families that at this time CST and our schools are continuing to monitor and follow the advice of National and State Health authorities and we are still focusing on our core responsibility to ensure that our students are being well-cared for and are receiving an excellent Christian education.
At the moment, the advice we are receiving (and following) from Public Health officials is that continuing to keep schools open, whilst exercising good hygiene practices and enforcing social distancing measures is the most appropriate action. For this reason, we, like the vast majority of schools across Australia, will remain open for as long as it is safe or we are given a directive to close.
In a recent letter from Mark Veitch, Director of Public Health, Mr. Veitch noted that it was unlikely that there would be mandatory school closures in the immediate future. In this letter, Mr. Veitch wrote
“The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee has met to consider the issue of school closures in relation to the community transmission of COVID-19. The Committee’s advice is that pre-emptive closures are not likely to be proportionate or effective as a public health intervention to prevent community transmission of COVID-19 at this time.” Mr Veitch went on to say that “Broadly, the health advice on school closures from previous respiratory epidemics shows the costs are often underestimated and the benefits are overestimated” and that “School closure is associated with considerable costs. Studies have estimated that around 15% of the workforce and 30% of the healthcare workforce may need to take time off work to care for children. While this effect could be mitigated somewhat, it is likely that this burden will still be significant and will fall disproportionately on those in casual or tenuous work circumstances.”
The Tasmanian Education Department is continuing to provide up-to-date information for parents on the situation as it evolves. You can follow the Department’s Facebook page as well as the Tasmanian Education Alerts webpage. For the latest advice, information and resources about coronavirus you can go to the Australian Government Department of Health website and follow the links.
On Monday night the Executive and Senior Leadership across our four schools met to discuss the current COVID-19 situation and how this is impacting our schools. Whilst we are standing by our decision to keep our schools open at this time, we are mindful that school closures may be a possibility in the future. For this reason, the discussions at the meeting also focused on how to best deliver continuity in education to our students in the event that one or more of our schools does close for a period of time. We are confident that our schools and teaching staff are well-placed and well-resourced to deliver remote learning to our students both in the primary and secondary grades should it become necessary to cancel face-to-face lessons for a time. Our ITC Manager is currently undergoing an audit across our school communities to confirm how families are situated for internet and computing capacity and we will be holding additional meetings in the coming days with our Senior Leadership to ensure we are prepared to move our teaching to an e-Learning platform should our schools close.
Given we expect to have higher numbers of parents choosing to not send their child/ren to school during this time, I thought it was important to address how we will be handling the attendance for these students.
In a recent letter that was circulated by the Tasmanian Government overnight from Jeremy Rockliffe, Minister for Education and Training, Mr Rockliffe said that he recognised that parents may have a range of reasons for not sending their children to school in light of COVID-19. He went on to say that parents are best placed to decide the most appropriate action to support the wellbeing of their child in these unprecedented times so the usual absence rules won’t apply.
With this in mind, I have advised our schools that any student absences related to child/ren being kept at home for self-isolation will be marked as an ‘Authorised Absence’. Please note, parents will still be required to advise the school in writing of any decision to keep their child/ren at home, so that schools are aware the student/s will be absent.
I encourage all of our families to continue to pray for protection over our community, state and nation, particularly for the more vulnerable. Please pray for wisdom for our school leaders and National and State Health authorities.
David Gillman CEO — Christian Schools Tasmania
Helpful Information
For general information about coronavirus, including the national response, you can call the National Coronavirus Information Line on 1800 020 080.