Canberra schools could be forced to close this term if the worst-case scenarios of staff shortages come to fruition.
An ACT Education Directorate document on COVID-19 planning for staff shortages viewed by The Canberra Times reveals strategies for four levels of absences as the Omicron variant continues to sweep through the community.
In the case of level one slightly reduced staffing, principals will be responsible for using casual staff, specialist and executive teachers or combining classes to cover classroom duties.
When these strategies can't cope with staff absences, schools will have access to a central teacher relief pool and higher-needs students might need to transition to remote learning.
Under level three severe shortages, the deputy director-general will step in to amalgamate resources across similar schools in a local geographic area and to transition part of the school to remote learning.
Under the highest level of shortages where face-to-face learning cannot be maintained, the director general, with the direction of the chief health officer, will decide to close a whole school and switch to remote learning.
If a school closes, it will remain closed for a minimum of five days or until staffing levels can return to the level one scenario. Supervision would be offered on site for one day if there was not enough notice given to parents.
Australian Education Union ACT branch president Angela Burroughs said members were uneasy about the inevitable disruptions and what that would mean for the workload and expectations placed on teachers.
"We would be mad not to have these scenarios and responses in place," she said.
Ms Burroughs said there was no point being critical about the rollout of rapid antigen test kits, which may not reach all schools before the first day of term.
She said the union was comfortable with the twice-weekly testing regime being voluntary.
"It's stupid to make it mandatory if you can't enforce it," she said.
"Why create an issue when the Canberra community has revealed itself willing to comply with reasonable health directions?"
University of Canberra professor of public health Shawn Somerset said there had been more emphasis on the safety of children but not as much discussion on health and safety of teachers.
He said teachers needed to model good behaviour, including being up-to-date with all COVID and flu vaccinations and wearing their masks correctly. If N95 masks were not available, teachers could try double-masking.
"Teachers have a really important role in all this because this is where a lot of behaviours are developed in terms of the minds of children," Prof Somerset said.
Prof Somerset said it was time to modify schools and other public places to decrease the risk of transmission rather than pushing all of the responsibility onto individuals.
"[We need] to develop novel ways to enhance ventilation so as to decrease the risk of viral transmission from person to person, which may involve things like if there are rooms in the school that just are not safe, teachers need to declare that and perhaps go to another room or go outside," he said.
The ACT government has spent almost $3 million on ventilation works at public schools since October.
"The initial packages of work focused on opening up windows and HVAC changes to increase fresh air supply, but the focus has now moved to longer-term solutions to prepare for the cooler months," an Education Directorate spokesman said.
"A key longer-term strategy will be to install heat recovery and energy ventilation systems that provide warm conditioned outdoor air and complement existing heating systems and replace recirculating split systems. The directorate has already been pre-purchasing these units, which will be installed at priority sites prior to the start of winter."
Three schools are getting shade sails installed for outdoor learning. A shade structure is under construction at Duffy Primary School in time for term 1, while design and development approvals are under way at Charles Weston School and Evatt Primary.
"The Education Directorate is currently in the planning phase for another $2.5 million of shade structures to be constructed in 2022. Schools will be asked to nominate projects to the Directorate for consideration," the spokesman said.
Prof Somerset said authorities needed to consider how the rapid antigen testing regime was managed.
"I hope that some thought has gone into organising the use of those tests, rather than simply just providing them and saying, 'OK, you've got two per week to use any way you want to ... it needs to provide people some guidance," he said.
He supported vaccination mandate for teachers as they were at greater risk of severe disease.
"I think given that most children don't develop as severe diseases as the adults, probably the biggest risk is teachers becoming ill and they can't work. And if there is enough teachers off work at any one time that puts significant strain on the school to be able to deliver. So this is probably the the big area of concern," Prof Somerset said.
