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By Teagan Rasche

Local schools divisions reporting less staff and student absences after fifth wave

Mar 9, 2022 | 4:52 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Classrooms are becoming fuller across Medicine Hat as absentee rates among students and staff decrease.

“Shortly after our return after Christmas, we did have a few days where we were up around 30 per cent in terms of absenteeism, now we are well below 10 per cent,” Supt. Dwayne Zarichny of the Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education said. “We are sort of in that normal range or just slightly above where we would be in a typical cold and flu season.”

The fifth wave had a big impact on the Catholic division, but even without masking the last few weeks absentee trends continue downwards.

It’s a similar situation for the Medicine Hat Public School Division.

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“For about a week, week and a half after the break we saw a continued increase in absence among students and staff,” Supt. Mark Davidson said. “In the week since that initial week and a half, it’s really started to come down to something a lot more close to the normal we remember from before COVID.”

Davidson says pre-COVID, the division had an absentee rate around three per cent and now it’s dipping around five per cent.

“We wonder if some of that level of absence will stay higher than it used to be because we as a culture have shifted a bit to staying home if you’re feeling at all sick,” Davidson said.

The public school division also faced substitute shortages over the past few months but Davidson says that problem has eased as of a week and a half ago.

In other schools across southeastern Alberta, Supt. Reagan Weeks of Prairie Rose Public Schools says recent absentee rates haven’t been out of the ordinary.

“We certainly understand that across the province there have been some pressures with regards to staffing due to COVID but we actually haven’t had that experience in Prairie Rose and we’ve been able to maintain staffing and student absenteeism rates have not altered very much in our case,” Weeks said.

Overall, the superintendents are happy to have fuller classes with students learning in person, face-to-face.