Toowoomba’s Fairholme College principal Linda Evans urges Qld Government to broaden ‘essential worker’ rules for boarding schools

The principal of a prestigious Toowoomba school has slammed Covid rules for “essential workers”, saying they were hurting the city’s boarding students. Find out why here.

Fairholme College principal Linda Evans has slammed the State Government'€™s ‘myopic’ Covid-19 restrictions around essential workers, saying the current rules were hurting boarding school students.

The principal of a distinguished Toowoomba private school has slammed the State Government’s “myopic” Covid-19 restrictions around essential workers, saying the current rules were hurting boarding school students.

Fairholme College’s Dr Linda Evans (right) wrote to Education Minister Grace Grace on Friday, calling on her to fix the current rules that only deemed teachers as critically essential.

Essential workers are currently allowed to leave quarantine to perform their jobs, as long as they are asymptomatic and have had at least two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Dr Evans said because boarding students didn’t leave the schools grounds of an afternoon, they were in the care of a number of staff not deemed “essential”.

“Yet again, it would seem that boarders are the forgotten faces of Queensland schools,” she said.

“Those boarding supervisors and boarding staff who care for our boarding students, the boarders whose home during a school term is on campus, are not deemed critically essential.

“The nurses who run the health centres that operate in large boarding contexts and who tend the health and wellbeing of these young people, sometimes at critical moments, are ironically, not deemed critical.

“The requirements for health and wellbeing support of young people in these schools are multifaceted and intricately interrelated, you cannot simply sever off a portion of staff as non-essential.”

Dr Evans said the current restrictions could lead to staff shortages, potentially leaving the school unable to take care of boarding students.

“In the hours (between 3pm and 8am), young people are in the care of boarding supervisors, sports coaches, tutors, social workers, counsellors, caterers, cleaners and nurses: yet somehow these workers, whose singular focus and work lies with the health, safety and wellbeing of young people, are deemed to be non- essential,” she said.

“One wonders who might be responsible for a 12-year-old boarder, in isolation over a weekend, in the midst of a Covid outbreak when staffing shortages are real?”

Dr Evans said the management of Covid-19 in a boarding school context was complex.

“There are operational parallels with the operations of aged care facilities,” she said.

Ms Grace said the rules for essential workers was a matter for Queensland Health.