c/o Nova Scotia Teachers Union, Facebook.

The first day of school is fast approaching.

Nova Scotia Teachers Union President Ryan Lutes says teachers still have concerns about COVID-19.

“Public Health has been pretty quiet lately in terms of how COVID-19 is going to impact schools in September and what the plan is,” says Lutes. “One of the things we’d like to see is public health taking a greater lead on providing parents, teachers and in school staff more information so they can make the best decisions for themselves.”

Lutes says the union has also been consistent in calling for increased ventilation measures in schools.

He says the federal government transferred $2.7 million to the province to address those issues and feels the province should be taking the lead to make sure every child, teacher and staff member knows the air in their school is clean.

The last school year was also marked by a shortage of substitute teachers.

Lutes says the situation has not changed much since then.

“When we can’t get substitute teachers that means teachers who are supporting students in different ways are being redeployed to the classrooms so those students are supervised. When we don’t have the right number of bodies in our schools, it really impacts kids,” says Lutes “Teachers are losing their marking/prep time which they already don’t have enough of.”

He adds the NSTU has been calling on the province to look at a pay raise for substitute teachers.

Lutes says right now substitutes are not making a livable wage and it will be hard to retain them going forward.

Students will return to class Tuesday, September 6.