Dear VTT Families,

We would like to provide you with an update regarding our illness protocols. The landscape and public health guidelines are changing daily and we appreciate how challenging this is for our parents. After conferring with our medical health advisory team, we believe that the best way to guide our parents is by sending you the most up-to-date information possible as well as links to resources that are regularly updated. The BCCDC website is the central source for the most current information and policies with regards to COVID-19 and we have been advised to use it as our primary source of information. At this time, we will be referring SK-Gr 7 parents directly to the guidelines set out in the Public Health Guidance for K-12 Schools and the BCCDC website rather than our previously published Illness Protocols Flowchart with regards to COVID-19. Early childhood families will be referred to the BCCDC Childcare Website for further information.

We know that this is a very challenging situation to navigate, but we hope that by using the BCCDC information, it will ensure that everyone is receiving the same guidance and following the same protocols. 

If your child is sick, we recommend that SK-7 parents refer to page 23 of the Public Health Guidance for K-12 Schools for further instruction. This will be updated frequently. If you have questions after that, please contact 8-1-1 or your health care provider for next steps. SK-7 parents may also consult the BCCDC School Website which answers many of the questions parents have, especially when it is appropriate to send a child back to school or for testing. For early childhood parents, please go to this BCCDC Child Care Website. Pay particular attention to the options to the right of the page for more information.

VTT’s Role

Notification and enforcement is the purview of public health, not schools 

We ask our parents to be diligent in screening their children for symptoms and to only send them to school when in good health. If a child is sent to school and found to be unwell as determined by the use of the health check on page 23 of the K-12 guidelines, students will be isolated until they can be retrieved by a parent. Please do not send your child to school if you believe they are in any way contagious. 

Where possible, we want to keep germs out of the school--not just COVID--so we thank parents for adhering to public health’s guidelines and picking their children up quickly when asked. 

We will endeavour to notify families when we become aware of significant updates to public health’s guidelines with regards to school-aged children and early childhood families. 

Health Check Helpful Information for Parents: 

Please see page 23 of K-12 Guidelines 

Please remember the following: 

  • Once COVID-19 is ruled out, we still ask for students to be in good health before returning to school (as per our standard illness policy);
  • Students with fever must be without symptoms for 24 hours and students with gastric illness must be without symptoms for 48 hours. 

What will occur if there is a COVID-19 positive case in the school/school community? 

Unfortunately, the reality of the current situation is that we all need to prepare ourselves for the possibility that someone from our community may test positive. Though we feel confident that the health and safety protocols at VTT are effective for the reduction of transmission, there is no way to control the accidental exposure that our families may have to the virus through their work and other activities. 

We thank our VTT families for taking extra precautions to keep all members of our community safe. Despite all of our efforts and those of our family members, we know there is a chance that COVID-19 will still be inadvertently contracted by a member of our community, and so we want you to be aware of the process for communicating to you should an exposure occur. 

In the event of an exposure, all communication will be dictated by public health. All confirmed cases are reported to public health and a team of contract tracers complete the tasks listed below:

  • Contact the school on behalf of the Medical Health Officer (MHO)
  • Request schedules and learning group-based student and faculty lists to determine who may have been potentially exposed, based on MHO contact tracing and exposure criteria
  • Contact individuals on the list for assessment based on MHO exposure criteria
  • Provide instructions to the individual regarding isolation or symptom monitoring
  • Provide the school with updates and instructions

The focus of the contract tracer team is to quickly and efficiently isolate individuals who may have been exposed, at the levels outlined in their criteria, so that there is the least amount of impact to the wider community. Only once they have done this, will they, in partnership with the BC Centre for Disease Control, send notification to our broader parent and staff community. 

VTT is obligated not to communicate directly with parents, students, and faculty unless specifically authorized by the MHO. More so, we will not be allowed to disclose the name, class, or grade of any student or staff member who may have contracted the virus. While we know that this will cause some anxiety, this is necessary to protect the privacy of individuals and families.

Please know that official communication from the school will come as quickly and transparently as regulations permit but is unlikely to be as timely as you have come to expect due to the process mandated by public health.

If you or a member of your immediate family are contacted by VCH to be tested or to self-isolate, please consider connecting directly with your division principal so that we can proactively develop a support plan to best meet the needs of your family. We will treat your family’s circumstances with utmost discretion. 

VTT has put in place measures to maintain learning from home for students who are required to quarantine. Please know that while our teachers will do their absolute best to provide guidance for students who are temporarily at home, their main priority has to be to those in school.

As always, thank you for your ongoing support of our efforts to create a safe learning environment. Your words of encouragement have meant a great deal over the past few weeks. 

Thank you for working with us as we all navigate these changing waters. Together, we will be able to keep our community safe.

G’Mar Hatimah Tovah,

Emily