With the ex­cep­tion of stu­dents in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools writ­ing ex­ams or those prepar­ing to write ex­am­i­na­tions in a year or two, al­most all oth­er stu­dents would re­port to phys­i­cal class­rooms twice a week.

This was one of the ma­jor pro­pos­als found in the sec­ond draft guide­lines for the re­open­ing of schools is­sued to stake­hold­ers by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion. The doc­u­ment was ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia.

The oth­er stand out pro­pos­al was that par­ents may be al­lowed to ap­ply for their chil­dren to con­tin­ue to re­ly sole­ly on vir­tu­al class­es when the phased re­open­ing of schools com­mences, ear­ly next month. 

Ac­cord­ing to the 57-page doc­u­ment, which was put for­ward fol­low­ing stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tions, last month, par­ents in­ter­est­ed in the op­tion must make re­quests and jus­ti­fy them to the prin­ci­pals of their chil­dren’s schools. Par­ents must guar­an­tee that their chil­dren would have ad­e­quate home su­per­vi­sion dur­ing on­line class­es and must show that they (the stu­dents) are equipped with dig­i­tal de­vices and in­ter­net con­nec­tiv­i­ty. Stu­dents’ per­for­mance in on­line class­es over the past year would be con­sid­ered, with 75 per cent pre­vi­ous at­ten­dance and no in­ci­dents of pre­vi­ous on­line in­dis­ci­pline be­ing pre-req­ui­sites. Teach­ers would al­so have to rec­om­mend such a course. 

Min­istry ap­proval on a case by case ba­sis would al­so be re­quired. 

The doc­u­ments stat­ed that Stan­dard Four and Five stu­dents in Pri­ma­ry Schools and Forms Four to Six stu­dents in Sec­ondary Schools would be re­quired to re­turn to school in Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber. Four Plus stu­dents at Ear­ly Child­hood and Care Cen­tres (EC­CC) are al­so ex­pect­ed to be­gin class­es dur­ing that pe­ri­od. 

All oth­er stu­dents of pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary and EC­CCs are ex­pect­ed to be brought out on a ro­ta­tion­al ba­sis from Oc­to­ber with all be­ing re­quired to at­tend phys­i­cal class­es two days per week ex­cept In­fants to Stan­dard One stu­dents, who would be on­ly re­quired to at­tend school one day per week. 

The doc­u­ment stat­ed that all stu­dents over the age of eight would be man­dat­ed to wear masks whilst on the school com­pound, while stu­dents be­tween the ages of three and eight should wear their masks as much as pos­si­ble es­pe­cial­ly when hav­ing in­door ac­tiv­i­ties. 

Schools were au­tho­rised to op­er­ate with­in nor­mal school hours, but were giv­en the op­tion to ex­tend hours to as­sist stu­dents, who may have fall­en be­hind due to lack of ac­cess to on­line class­es. 

The min­istry ad­vised that stu­dents, who like all vis­i­tors to schools would be tem­per­a­ture checked and re­quired to wash their hands be­fore en­ter­ing schools, should not be al­lowed to min­gle.

Morn­ing as­sem­blies should on­ly be done on PA sys­tems un­less so­cial dis­tanc­ing can be fa­cil­i­tat­ed and must in­clude a mo­ti­va­tion­al mes­sage and rep­e­ti­tion of COVID-19 guide­lines and pro­to­cols. 

“Breaks (bath­room vis­its, lunch) should be stag­gered (where pos­si­ble),” it stat­ed, as it not­ed that stu­dents should eat and/or drink in their class­rooms.

Stu­dents and staff, who dis­play flu like symp­toms, must be im­me­di­ate­ly tak­en to each school’s des­ig­nat­ed quar­an­tine area and Ed­u­ca­tion­al Dis­trict Med­ical Teams, which in­clude two reg­is­tered nurs­es, must be con­tact­ed.

The min­istry al­so gave a timetable for the school term, which high­light­ed the ori­en­ta­tion and de­brief­ing ex­er­cis­es to be per­formed by teach­ers, as well as as­sess­ments of stu­dents to de­ter­mine their learn­ing loss and po­ten­tial re­me­di­al ac­tion. 

“Where there is ad­e­quate staff and phys­i­cal ac­com­mo­da­tion, the op­tion of stu­dents who are iden­ti­fied as most at risk for learn­ing loss to at­tend school phys­i­cal­ly on a dai­ly ba­sis whilst the oth­er stu­dents con­tin­ue the ro­tat­ing sys­tem, may be utilised for a pe­ri­od of time to al­low for the clos­ing of the gap,” it said. 

The min­istry not­ed that all sur­faces in class­rooms should be wiped with a bleach and wa­ter so­lu­tion be­fore and af­ter class­es. 

“High-traf­fic ar­eas and high-con­tact sur­faces are fre­quent­ly sani­tised with the rec­om­mend­ed dis­in­fect­ing so­lu­tions,” it said. 

The min­istry al­so rec­om­mend­ed the non-shar­ing of books and food and pro­hib­it­ed the use of rags. Stu­dents were al­so ad­vised to bring a per­son­al sup­ply sani­tis­er and/or hand soap. 

Prin­ci­pals were al­so ad­vised to make re­quests through the sub­sti­tute teacher sys­tem to en­sure that they have enough staff to ad­dress the needs of their stu­dents while ad­her­ing to the rec­om­men­da­tions. 

While it not­ed that teach­ers and staff are en­cour­aged to get vac­ci­nat­ed if will­ing, it claimed that strict ad­her­ence to COVID-19 pro­to­cols was nec­es­sary to en­sure the suc­cess of the re­open­ing as there is al­so no cur­rent lo­cal vac­ci­na­tion pol­i­cy for chil­dren ages 12 to 18 with parental con­sent. 

Af­ter the first draft guide­lines were pub­lished by the min­istry, the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) com­plained about be­ing giv­en a week­end’s no­tice to study the doc­u­ment be­fore a meet­ing be­tween the min­istry and stake­hold­ers. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, TTUTA Pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De­Fre­itas not­ed that af­ter TTUTA raised its con­cerns over the con­sul­ta­tion, it still par­tic­i­pat­ed in the meet­ing of stake­hold­ers and pro­vid­ed its views in writ­ing, sub­se­quent­ly. 

Tekah-De­Fre­itas said she was on va­ca­tion and had not got­ten an op­por­tu­ni­ty to pe­ruse the doc­u­ment and de­ter­mine if TTUTA’s sug­ges­tions were adopt­ed. She sug­gest­ed con­tact­ing TTUTA’s First Vice Pres­i­dent Mar­lon Seales. How­ev­er, Seales did not an­swer calls to his cell­phone late yes­ter­day evening.