Surrey teachers rally for MLAs to add more COVID safety measures in schools

SURREY (NEWS 1130) — A group of teachers in Surrey took part in a caravan Saturday, touring around the city to put pressure on New Democrat MLA’s to heed their calls for further protections against COVID-19 in schools.

While the teachers didn’t get the response they wanted, they say they will remain committed to driving home their message about school safety.

Surrey Teachers Association President Matt Westphal says their pressure campaign comes as they continue to also press the local School District for changes.

“The answer we always get is ‘well, this is in the hands of public health.’ And so they follow the guidelines that are given from them. So they don’t feel able to exceed those currently,” he explains.

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Teachers in Surrey have been pressing for a mask mandate for Kindergarten to Grade 3 students, better ventilation in schools, as well as reduced class sizes for the remainder of the year.

“We still have two months left in the school year, and we’re still having very high levels of exposures in schools. We have people getting sick, including people who have been vaccinated — we know the vaccines aren’t 100 per cent foolproof from you getting the virus, so it remains a concern,” he says. “So we still have two months, which is a lot of time for things to go wrong. So we want to finish the year strong. So we’re just looking thinking about what our next steps will be.”

Westphal acknowledges improvements have been made, but “they need to get better.”