COVID case emerges at Woodstock School

Woodstock, New Brunswick has weathered the pandemic well. It followed all of the proper protocols and such; however, nothing could have prepared the town for a student at Townsview to test positive for COVID.

Townsview is a K-8 School which has been adapting to the pandemic throughout the year. Classes are separated into their own bubbles while teachers move from classroom to classroom instead of the other way around. Masks are mandatory, students and staff regularly disinfect and sanitize equipment after use and teachers teach behind face and body shields. Extracircular activities such as badminton and cross-country running have been able to continue thanks to the natural distance they provide. There’s more classes in general due to the need for a smaller number of students per-group; Townsview has converted meeting rooms and even a music room to accommodate this. Students in their bubbles can only interact with other students within it; even if a student in another bubble may live in the same household or street as a student, they are not to interact to ensure safety.

There hadn’t been any COVID cases up until now and it shocked plenty when the news struck. School attendance dropped to 40% on the Monday following the announcement and eventually evened out to normal by the end of the week. Townsview has shifted their focus to checking on students’ mental health to reduce stress.

“…I noticed a little bit more of was a bigger focus on social-emotional learning this week”, said Darlene Skinner, a middle school level art and language arts teacher at Townsview. “Doing more check-ins with students throughout the day versus a couple times of day.”

The resilience of the students was also mentioned by Darlene; they had been following all of the new rules and had been adapting to the situation well. The same could be said for the teachers; although, its hardly easy. Teachers are on the go from 7:30 in the morning to the late evening depending on how much work needs to be done. The increased amount of classes and a constant demand has left teachers with little chance to do prep-work in between class.

While the stress has impacted Townsview, they’ve worked well with it. Townsview’s vice-principal, Steven Jones, believes that their current measures have been enough in spite of the recent case.

“I really don’t see much changing”, Jones began. “I think in this case, and certainly not being able to go into details, the way it entered the school had nothing to do with the school or any of the policies that we had or things we had put in place.” The student, as well as staff and the rest of their bubble were notified and self-isolated as needed once the positive test was announced.

No other cases have emerged since the original announcement. With the source having not tested positive due to the school itself, classes at Townsview have continued as they have all year. It doesn’t seem as though Townview will need to shut-down anytime soon. Jones hopes things will quiet down, “Certainly if we can maintain and not have any more cases then we’ll feel very happy and content about the things we put in place in terms of masks and what you can and can’t do and so on and so forth.”

Townsview remains open and continues to have classes in session.