Premier Jason Kenney was joined by Education Minister Adriana LaGrange and chief medical officer of health Deena Hinshaw Tuesday afternoon, July 21, in announcing that students would be returning to class this fall.
Schools will be welcoming students under the province’s Scenario 1, which is near normal operations with health measures in place to protect students and staff.
“We are determined to do everything that we can to safely return our students, teachers, and staff to school. I appreciate the input and support of school authorities across the province, as well as our education partners, in developing and refining our school re-entry plan,” said Minister LeGrange. “We are providing clear and detailed guidelines and a re-entry tool kit so everyone can do their part and prepare for a safe return to school.”
Indeed his scenario, classes would resume with all students returning to school. There would be measures in place which include frequent cleaning of surfaces, placing hand sanitizers at school entrances and classrooms, grouping students in cohorts, and planning the school day to allow for physical distancing, which could include staggering start times for classes, recesses, and lunches. Additional public health measures may be established prior to September on the advice of the chief medical officer of health in consultation with the education system.
The announcement came earlier than expected, allowing schools and boards more time to prepare for the season.
“The College of Alberta School Superintendents appreciates the opportunity to work alongside government and education partners to develop a detailed re-entry plan,’ said Bevan Daverne, president, College of Alberta School Superintendents and Golden Hills School Division superintendent. “The CASS board of directors strongly believes that the re-entry plan offers the appropriate balance of guidance from the chief medical officer of health and the government while providing for the authority and autonomy for individual school divisions to assure their students, parents, and staff that a successful return to school will be safe.”
A release from the Alberta Teacher's Association (ATA) states that teachers are still concerned about the return to school.
“Teachers are looking forward to doing the work they love to do with their students, but we remain concerned by the failure of the government to adequately address their concerns,” said ATA President Jason Schilling. “Successful school reopening is critical to the well-being of students, teachers, staff, their families, and the economy, and it requires the confidence of everyone impacted.”

A rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in the Drumheller Valley has prompted Alberta Health Service (AHS) to designate Drumheller in a “Watch Category.”
Drumheller CAO Darryl Drohomerski announced this at Monday night’s Council Meeting. He explains that communities are designated as watch communities when there are more than 10 cases, in a zone or a ratio of 50 cases per 100,000 population. There were four communities in Alberta which were also designated watch communities, including Kneehill County.
Over the last week cases in Drumheller went from five active cases to 13 active cases. In Drumheller, there has been a total of 15 cases with two designated as recovered.
Alberta is also seeing a rise in cases. From July 13, the province went from 703 to 1,109 cases as of July 20. This has been the highest number of cases since May 12. This is the highest number of active cases peaking at 2,994 on April 30.
He noted that while a number of people have expressed pandemic fatigue he is also heartened by the number of people taking it seriously.
“I noticed yesterday at Riverside Park there were lots of people out and they were all distanced by two metres or more, so that is a positive,” he said.
Drumheller Town Hall closed its doors last week after a person who participated in meetings there had tested positive.
“I want to remind people about what we should be doing because ultimately we are all in this together and we all need to succeed and we need to do our best in order to make other people successful,” he said.
Drohomerski recommends that people follow social distance protocols and use masks in public areas, especially when it is not possible to social distance. Also to cover your mouth and nose when you sneeze. Also make sure to wash and lather your hands for at least 20 seconds, use alcohol-based sanitizer regularly and avoid touching your face.
He says at this point the town is not planning to reactivate its emergency operation centre.
“They (AHS) feel what we are doing is adequate through providing education and communication to the public,” he said. “We’re not different than any of the communities in the watch category right now. We are not looking to reinstate the EOC, we are looking to do more communication and we have been doing that since the middle of last week.”