Not all school departments in Manitoba are publicly communicating absenteeism levels in their classrooms one week since the province announced it would discontinue individual contact detection for COVID-19.
However, one Winnipeg division does things differently.
Louis Riel School Division Superintendent Christian Michalik says after much composition they now have a online chart shows student absenteeism rates related to COVID-19 with plans to introduce one to staff on Friday.
“We think it’s important to provide perspective so that the community can see a baseline for the year and to better understand the trend going forward,” Michalik told Global News on Thursday.
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Louis Riel’s dashboard on Thursday reported an overall 21 percent student absenteeism rate, with five percent associated with COVID-19, out of 15,645 students. The department’s data dates back to September 2021, but the website warns that the graphs are based on the number of cases reported voluntarily to its schools.
Brandon School Department and Seine River School Division also provides daily overall student absenteeism rates for individual schools.
The Winnipeg School Division told Global News its schools monitor attendance on a weekly basis.
“(Schools) will advise their school communities if attendance is normal, decreases but still within acceptable levels (based on that school’s historical attendance figures) or if attendance has decreased to a level of concern, at what time there will be a warning made to the province, as directed by Manitoba Education, ”a WSD spokesman said in an email.
Absence levels of WSD teachers and educational assistants were 13 and 12 percent, respectively – normal for this time of year, they said.
However, some other school departments have redirected parents to the province’s online dashboard for cases in schools.
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The province said last week that schools should regularly provide absenteeism information through their regular channels. According to a provincial government’s slide deck shared with school departments, this could include information from the province’s dashboard or unusual absences.
Michalik says schools need to complete a new alert form to communicate COVID-19 concerns with public health, something the department has had to do since the change to contact detection.
Global News reached out to 11 Manitoba school departments for comment and heard back from three before publication time.
Global News also reached out to the province for comment.
– with files by Keesha Harewood
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