New school year starts with some teachers and students in isolation at home

Brauer College has 26 active cases with 23 among students and three teachers with COVID-19, followed by seven students and two teachers at Emmanuel College, two students at Allansford and District Primary School and one student at Cobden Technical School and one teacher in isolation.

There are also an undisclosed number of active cases among staff and students at Warrnambool College, Warrnambool East Primary School and St Pius X Primary School.

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Brauer College principal Jane Boyle told The Standard the active total cases recorded on Friday minimally impacted the school.

"At this stage, we've been able to manage with emergency teachers and we've been able to cope and keep running the school seamlessly," Ms Boyle said.

"It's what I expected and in the next couple of weeks I expect the numbers to increase, which would definitely impact on the college."

She said the school community was updated on case numbers on a daily basis. Emmanuel College also does daily updates.

Principal Peter Morgan said on Thursday the school recorded one positive case in year 7, 8 and 9 classes and four positive cases among year 11 and year 12 students.

"We currently have two teachers who are sick and isolating with one of those returning next Monday after the seven-day isolation period," he said.

"A teacher who is absent and in isolation is able to continue to prepare and deliver their lessons as long as they are only isolating and not unwell."

If a teacher was too unwell to teach, a relief teacher may step in. He said the school also had lessons pre-planned and available through Google Classroom.

"So far we have covered those staff impacted by COVID and the effect is minimal," he said.

"We hope we won't see an escalation of the numbers of staff who cannot work as a rapid increase in staff members isolating will quickly have an exponential impact on a school's capacity to continue its core business of learning and teaching."

Cobden Technical School principal Rohan Keert said the school had a contingency plan to accommodate active cases and close contacts.

He said with the school sharing its bus service with other schools, if any of those had active cases, each school respectively contacted the close contacts on that bus route.

Allansford and District Primary School principal Wes Allen said it was expected schools would have active cases in the first week back.

"All schools are basically following their COVID-Safe plans," he said.

"I think that with the introduction of the RAT kits, we're fortunate that parents are being vigilant and following up on the RATs.

"The tests are casting a bit of a safety net across students and families and detecting things that may otherwise have gone undetected.

"People have to be real about it, we'll get cases."

Mr Allen said the school's intention was to have the children onsite in the least interrupted manner with all safety measures in place.

St Pius X Parish School principal Joe Ewing said a "handful" of teachers and students had the virus. "We've got some tiered strategies with staff being away and how we replace them and that's working well," he said.

Warrnambool East Primary School's Robyn Ledin said she was pleasantly surprised at the minimal disruption to teaching and learning.

"The students have been settling in really well," she said.

"The rest of the term is a wait and see and the key message is about not planning too far ahead. We've definitely got a positive outlook."

In a letter from Warrnambool College school principal Dave Clift to parents on Thursday, he said students in years 7, 8, 11 and 12 had been impacted by COVID-19, but did not wish to divulge to The Standard the number of cases due to "privacy reasons".

"The teachers are doing the best for their students in providing them with learning materials to access if they have to isolate at home, " he told The Standard.

A spokesman from The Victorian Department of Education and Training said detecting coronavirus cases through the school rapid testing program showed that the program was working.

"Catching cases before they enter the classroom to keep school communities safer," he said.

The spokesman said no schools have been closed due to coronavirus outbreaks or staff shortages,.

"All affected schools are managing their cases incredibly well - with clear emails to families alerting them to a positive case and the details of the exposure so parents can monitor their children for symptoms," the spokesman said.

"With more than 1.1 million Victorians in schools every day, these cases are an extremely low proportion of the overall case tally.

"The return to the classroom for 2022 has been enthusiastically embraced by the vast majority of Victorian students and families, with the attendance rate for government school students this week within the normal range of attendance typically seen in the first week of the school year."

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