CMSD82 Letter to Parents-Caregivers, Welcome Back to All Our Students, Jan. 10, 2022 (PDF format)
Dear CMSD82 Parents & Caregivers,
We look forward to welcoming your child back to school on January 10. We are all waiting to see how the Omicron variant will impact the day-to-day operation of school.
From the information provided by the Provincial Health Office and the BC Centre for Disease Control, we know that Omicron is a more transmissible virus with reduced symptoms for those who are vaccinated. While we hope that you, your child and the staff of Coast Mountains School District are not impacted by the virus, we need to be prepared when there may be high staff absenteeism.
A functional closure is when a school is not able to operate in a safe manner. There are two ways that a school could be functionally closed:
- The Northern Health Authority could recommend a functional closure of a school due to the COVID-19 case count in or related to a school.
- The school district may close a school due to a shortage of staff to be able to provide a required level of student safety. This would likely be due to a high absenteeism of all staff or certain employees required for a school to function and the inability to replace those absences.
Another way in which you could be impacted is if a transportation route is closed due to a shortage of staff to be able to provide the required level of service and safety for students. This would likely be due to the absenteeism of bus drivers and/or mechanics and the inability to replace those absences.
Coast Mountains School District has established a process where each morning the status of absenteeism for transportation and schools will be reviewed. If a bus route or school is required to be closed, we commit to inform you, if possible, by 7:00 a.m. that morning. Please contact your school to ensure we have the communication method you would want the school to use to share this information with you. These closures will also be posted to the school district website at www.cmsd.bc.ca and to the respective school website and social media (if applicable) by 7:00 a.m.
This is a new reality and complexity for all of us and while we want this to go well for you, your child and staff, we know that the next several weeks will be challenging. We thank you, in advance, for your patience in these extremely challenging times.
Yours sincerely,
Janet Meyer, Superintendent of Schools
