Susie O’Brien: Cracks already showing in back-to-school plans

Sending kids back to school is the right move, but with no advance testing and a shortage of RATs, it should have been managed much better than this.

Covid case numbers are set to rise with a million kids coming back to school this week.

However, kids weren’t tested before they started school and now risk spreading the virus to their classmates and teachers.

The state government promised there would be 6.6 million rapid antigen tests delivered in the first week of term – but why not distribute them to families during the holidays to stop infected kids coming back on day one?

Sending kids back to school is the right move, but it could – and should – have been managed much better than this.

The state government is “strongly” recommending primary and secondary students and staff to undergo twice-weekly RATs at home before school.

Students and staff at specialist schools are recommended to test five days each week, due to their increased vulnerability. And yet not enough has been done to make sure kids got tested before they returned to campus on their first day.

Some kids started back last Thursday and so have had three days in class so far with no RAT tests to be seen.

Other schools say they’ve received some RATs, but not enough for the first week.

It’s no wonder at least one school is reporting five cases across five year levels, plus one teacher.

The return to school is critically important, not only so parents can return to their paid jobs, but also for the social and educational wellbeing of kids.

While parents will use their own RATs (if they’ve got any) to test symptomatic kids, they’re unlikely to test those who are asymptomatic.

As usual, the government is big on hype, short on delivery. They didn’t actually promise to get the tests to families before the first day of school, but they should have.

Under Victorian rules it’s not even mandatory for kids to do RAT tests, it’s only recommended, not doubt because governments can’t be sure the tests will be available.

After two years of broken promises, endless restrictions and lockdowns, we don’t trust governments to keep us safe. We’re making up our own rules.

In fact, one survey even suggests 39 per cent of parents are planning to save their RATs rather than follow the guidelines. Fifteen per cent say they will only test kids with symptoms.

I understand this reticence.

Politicians told us to test ourselves using RATs, then they went off on holidays while we begged, queued and scrounged around to find testing kits.

In many cases families went weeks without knowing whether they had Covid or not due to the severe lack of home tests and inadequate testing hubs.

Another concern is that parents won’t be able to monitor cases at their schools because the state government is no longer reporting outbreaks of more than 10 cases.

Parents will have to rely on principals to report individual cases – a system that hasn’t always worked well in the past.

Students, as ever, are collateral damage – an afterthought rather than a first concern.

The state and federal governments have had six weeks over summer to perfect their plans, and already cracks are showing.

Schools continue to report a lack of air purifiers, trouble with windows that won’t open and classrooms with poor airflow.

Not enough has been done to make sure kids got tested before they returned to campus on their first day. Picture: AFP

Three years into this pandemic, they’re still waiting on shade cloths to conduct outside classes.

There are other areas of concern as well.

After a much-publicised hiring blitz to attract a surge workforce to schools to cover close contacts or staff with Covid, schools have hired just 346 additional teachers and 28 principals.

Given that there are 2276 schools and 50,000 teachers in government schools alone, this seems inadequate. Last year thousands of staff were unable to work, not just 300.

In an election year both state and federal governments deserve to be judged by how smoothly the return to school process goes.

Parents stressed and exhausted by two years of on-again-off-again remote learning will savage any government presiding over any long-term closures of schools and an unnecessarily large surge in Covid case numbers.

The return to school is critically important, not only so parents can return to their paid jobs, but also for the social and educational wellbeing of kids.

We urgently need more to be done if we are to keep ahead of this virus. Mandatory third boosters, would be a good start.

Two million people are eligible for boosters but have not yet received them.

And only 44 per cent of children aged five to 11 have received one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, with parents exhausted by the effort of finding appointments.

Despite all of this, parents should be reassured that school is the right place for kids to be. If students do get Covid, they are unlikely to get very sick. It’s just a pity not more is being done to minimise the chance of them being exposed in the first place.

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist