Vancouver mother pushing province to reconsider school reopenings in June

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – With schools in B.C. set to reopen to some degree starting next month, a Vancouver mother is hoping to convince Victoria to back away from bringing students back into the classroom amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The June 1 reopening will take place at most schools on an optional, part-time basis. However, Patricia Cullen isn’t a fan of the idea.

She’s started a petition, urging the provincial government to reconsider its plan.

“As any parent would know, and may have already referred to schools as, a Petri dish,” she tells NEWS 1130. “Long before pandemics, you enrolled your child in school, you noticed that everyone in the house starts to pick up on whatever cold and flu is going around.”

While Cullen empathizes with parents who want their kids out of the house so they can return to work, she argues the month’s worth of in-person learning isn’t worth it if the coronavirus were to catch hold through schools.

“[Children are] just not self-aware enough to maintain the level of self-sanitization that is required to keep themselves safe,” Cullen says.

While the petition has only gathered a couple of hundred signatures so far, Cullen hopes it’ll still get her message across.

She says she will not be among the parents sending their child back to class before September.

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