A kindergarten teacher who poisoned 25 children, killing one of them, after an argument with a rival staff member has been sentenced to death by a court in central China.
In its official ruling Monday, the Jiaozuo Intermediate People’s Court in Henan province described killer Wang Yun’s motives as “despicable” and “vicious.” “She should be punished severely in accordance with the law,” the ruling said. The court heard that in the lead-up to the poisoning, Wang had quarreled with another teacher at the Jiaozuo kindergarten over how best to handle the students. Then, on the morning of March 27, 2019, Wang added nitrite to porridge supplied by the school and intended for the other teacher’s students. Wang had previously bought the nitrite online.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nitrite is toxic and a likely carcinogen used in fertilizers, food preservation and even munitions and explosives. At high levels, it can stop the human body from properly absorbing oxygen.
Wang had previously been caught trying to poison her husband, surnamed Feng, in February 2017 after an argument. On that occasion, Wang poured nitrite into a glass used by Feng, causing minor injuries.
At the time of the 2019 kindergarten poisoning, one parent told China’s state-run tabloid Global Times he had received a call from the kindergarten saying his child had vomited and fainted. When he arrived, his child was unconscious.”The vomit was all over (their) pants. There were other children who were also throwing up, and they looked pale,” the father, surnamed Li, said.
Allegations of needle injuries
Wang’s sentence comes amid fresh allegations of the mistreatment of children at a kindergarten in northern China. Eight parents claimed to have found unknown needle marks on their children’s heads and bodies after they returned from Zhaojun Dingqi Kindergarten in Hohhot, in the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, state media Xinhua said.
According to Xinhua, when asked about the needle holes, the children told their parents that their teacher stabbed them with “toothpicks” and “red needles” for not behaving in class — and ordered them to not tell their families.
In a statement, the Xincheng district police said three women had been detained on suspicion of “torturing children under their guardianship,” although the case remains under investigation.
The Dingqi kindergarten said in a statement that while the school apologized for the concern and worry caused to parents, it had not yet found any evidence to substantiate the claims.” At present, (we) have cooperated with the police to provide relevant surveillance footage and equipment, and cooperated with the investigation by the public security department,” the statement said.
In November 2017, a Beijing kindergarten teacher was sentenced to 18 months in prison for piercing four children in her class with needles. Police said the teacher, surnamed Liu, was using the needles to “tame” children, according to state-run tabloid Global Times.
The Miami-Dade County School Board will convene an emergency meeting Tuesday to discuss reopening schools, this time under pressure from the Florida Department of Education to open schools Monday.
Days after the board voted on a conditional timeline of reopening schools between Oct. 14 and Oct. 21, Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran sent a sternly worded letter to Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and board chair Perla Tabares Hantman on Friday. He accused the board of contradicting the district’s state-approved reopening plan, which says the district would determine by Sept. 30 if “local conditions meet the criteria established” to open schools Oct. 5.
Corcoran instructed the district to open schools for in-person classes by Monday or prove exemptions on a school-by-school basis by Friday.
Tuesday’s 1 p.m. board meeting, to be held in person for the first time since March at the school district’s downtown headquarters, only has one item on the agenda to decide how to proceed. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho offered the board two options.
He recommended the first option of revising the board’s school reopening timeline to allow a return of students to in-person schooling on Monday, with a non-opt teacher planning day set for this Friday.
The second option authorizes Carvalho and his staff to “take actions necessary to secure the Florida Department of Education’s approval of the revised reopening timeline,” including a staggered reopening of schools beginning Monday to ensure the district remains eligible for state flexibility and funding under Corcoran’s previous emergency order calling for in-person learning five days a week.
Because South Florida became a COVID-19 hot spot over the summer, the Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach school districts were allowed to begin the school year virtually.
Carvalho said that if the board went with option two, the district would have to analyze each of its 340 schools, and submit that analysis to the state for approval.
Corcoran told the Miami-Dade School Board that it must answer six questions for each school that will not be open for in-person instruction by Monday. They range from school capacity and how many students have requested and can be accommodated for in-person instruction, to a “reasoned explanation” for why “not a single student” can receive in-person instruction by citing specific health and safety guidance.
Those answers are due by Friday, a week after the board received Corcoran’s letter.
Also on Friday, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order moving the state into Phase 3 of its coronavirus reopening plan, allowing for all businesses to reopen, some with capacity limits. On Saturday, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez signed an order relaxing local restrictions in step with the governor’s order.
Schools are not specifically addressed in the state’s reopening plan. Rather, education is listed as an “ongoing consideration.”
Corcoran gave a third option for the board to consider, but Carvalho warned against it as it could cause “significant financial implications.”
Corcoran said the board could withdraw its reopening plan and proceed under existing statutory framework, but Carvalho said the state could determine that the district would no longer qualify for “guaranteed funding at levels beyond what would otherwise be available,” because the district was deemed to be out of compliance with the emergency order.
Board chair Hantman said Carvalho called Tuesday’s meeting and that she wasn’t thrilled with the proposal, believing that there should be more options for the board to consider.
“I honestly feel that to open the schools on the fifth as it says, I don’t believe this will be in the best interest of the students all at the same time,” she said, preferring a staggered start. “I don’t believe operations is ready to do that.”
A dozen protesters led by the Rank and File Educators of Miami-Dade rallied outside the Miami-Dade School Board administration building on Monday afternoon supporting the board’s decision for a later start and condemning DeSantis’ demands as bullying.
From left, teachers Charles Pilamunga, Jeff Raymond, Thomas Fiori, and Richard Ocampo participate in a rally at Miami-Dade County School Board headquarters Monday. The rally, which was led by Rank and File Educators of Miami-Dade, a faction of the United Teachers of Dade, opposed state officials pressuring school administrators to open in-person classes on Monday.
Jeff Raymond, a high school social studies teacher, said he visited his classroom at the end of last week and didn’t see any hand sanitizer and not enough social distancing in classrooms. His school, which he asked to not name, said 80% of students are expected back for in-person learning.
On Monday, Raymond received paperwork to apply for an exemption under the Americans with Disabilities Act. He has pre-existing health conditions and said he was “not comfortable at all” with his classroom setup.
“I’ve been prepared to take a bullet for my students and those are unpreventable,” he said. “This is preventable.”
Several teachers from Miami Beach Senior High were present. One teacher who declined to give his name said he hasn’t received any PPE or been told about protocols.
History teacher Charles Pilamunga said he brought a tape measure to his classroom. He has 37 desks in his spacious classroom, yet there’s only 2 feet between desks. International standards outlined in the teachers union agreement with the district call for 3 feet, 3 inches of social distance.
Pilamunga can’t quit his job. He’s the sole breadwinner in his family and he has two young children.
“It is what it is but I’d rather it not be this way,” he said, carrying a sign that read, “It’s life or death for us, our students and our communities.”
In a video, United Teachers of Dade president Karla Hernandez-Mats said there’s frustration in school communities. She called on the school board to have the fortitude and “the spine” to stand up to “this bully.”
“We see this as an attack on local control from the governor,” she said, adding that teachers have asked for a delay, not to keep schools closed. “Our teachers want to go back to school. But what they’re saying is that they want to do it with due diligence, making sure that all the safety precautions have been implemented.”
The Broward County School Board received an identical, word-for-word letter as Miami-Dade also on Friday.
Board chair Donna Korn responded to Corcoran that same day, saying the board was confused by his assertion that the board contradicted its reopening plan. The plan, approved by the state and posted on its website, clearly says the district “anticipates needing to remain in the eLearning modality for the first quarter of instruction (ending October 16, 2020).”
Korn pointed out that Phase 2 status is one of five considerations for reopening schools. The others include disease progression (infection rate, positivity rate trends, absolute positivity rate); ability to manage the spread (test result turnaround time, contact tracing capacity); health system capacity (COVID hospitalization rate, hospital bed/ICU capacity); and district safeguards (availability of PPE and sanitization materials).
“Therefore, we choose to move forward with the First option as outlined in your correspondence and continue to follow our original State approved Innovative Reopening Plan,” Korn wrote.
The Broward County School Board will vote on a reopening plan at its next meeting. The board has a workshop Tuesday and a meeting on Oct. 6. Korn wrote that schools can open no earlier than Oct. 14 but possibly earlier than Oct. 20.
Miami-Dade Superintendent Carvalho warned the board about deviating from the district’s state-approved reopening plan at the last board meeting. Vice chair Steve Gallon rejected that notion, pointing out that the district’s approved plan includes using curriculum by K12, the for-profit company that produced the district’s malfunctioning online learning platform that was ultimately scrapped. That platform hasn’t been in use for weeks with no objection from the state.
“What must be made clear is that this is not about the School Board against the Florida Department of Education — we can ill afford to let that ‘dog’ of a narrative hunt,” Gallon said in a statement. “This has been and must continue to be about the School Board standing for the education and safety of students and the welfare of employees, and for the future financial viability of our school district.”
By Jayme Fraser, Mike Stucka, Emily Bloch, Rachel Fradette, Sommer Brugal
Many teachers and families feared a spike in COVID-19 cases when Florida made the controversial push to reopen schools in August with in-person instruction.
A USA TODAY analysis shows the state’s positive case count among kids ages 5 to 17 declined through late September after a peak in July. Among the counties seeing surges in overall cases, it’s college-age adults – not schoolchildren – driving the trend, the analysis found.
The early results in Florida show the success of rigorous mask wearing, social distancing, isolating contacts and quick contact tracing when necessary, health experts said.
“Many of the schools that have been able to successfully open have also been implementing control measures that are an important part of managing spread in these schools,” said Dr. Nathaniel Beers, who serves on the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on School Health.
Although things went well early, the experts cautioned that schools could still be the source of future problems. They warned against reading the data as a reason to reopen all schools or abandon safety measures.
Hundreds of students and staffers contracted the novel coronavirus despite the precautionary measures. The Florida Department of Health published a report last month showing 559 COVID-19 cases related to elementary, middle and high schools logged from Aug. 10 to 23. State health officials quickly retracted the report, saying it was a draft and “inadvertently made available.”
Despite the bright spots in the data showing school-age cases declining from their summertime peak, there was one troubling trend: The rate of decline slowed in many places after schools reopened.
That might mean cases have plateaued and schools have not fueled new, large outbreaks. Or it might mean those counties are at the bottom of a U and could soon turn upward again.
“It’s one of those things where it’s not a problem until there is a problem,” said Dr. Katherine Auger, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine who studied the lives saved by spring school closures.
All eyes on Florida
Health researchers and educational experts watch Florida for cues about what works to keep students, staff and the broader community safe amid a pandemic.
Most of the largest school districts around the country – including those in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas – reopened with virtual learning plans. Florida mandated that public schools offer face-to-face instruction and that campuses reopen no later than Aug. 31, a decision that drew an unsuccessful lawsuit from the state teachers union.
More than half of Florida families returned their children to school in-person, state education officials said. The rest chose remote learning.
As weeks ticked by and a surge of school-linked cases did not materialize, requests to return remote learners to the classroom have surged in some places.
In Martin County, along the Atlantic Coast, the school district logged more than 160 such requests. That’s nearly four times as many as those asking to switch from in-person to remote.
Caitlynne Palmieri was among the Martin County parents wanting to return her child to the classroom. She initially enrolled her 9-year-old in the remote learning option because of high community infection rates. Her son, a fourth grader, had trouble focusing on schoolwork from home. When she saw how safety measures were implemented and adhered to, Palmieri sent him back to the classroom.
“I knew it was right for us,” she said. “He wanted to be back, and I felt safe.”
Schools in Martin County reopened Aug. 11. In the four weeks prior, the state Health Department reported 69 coronavirus cases among school-age children. In the four weeks after opening, the data shows 62 cases in that age group.
In Florida, unlike most states, there is one school district for each county, making it easier to analyze the impact of reopening schools on county coronavirus cases.
The Health Department in Martin County has seen little evidence of in-classroom transmission within the school district, spokesperson Renay Rouse said. Transmission is linked to students’ out-of-school or social activities.
COVID-19 cases “are leveling off, and the trends are going in the right direction, (and) the preventive measures adopted by the school district community have been an essential part in stopping the spread of the virus,” Rouse said.
Lesley Fidler, whose son attends kindergarten at Jensen Beach Elementary School – which has issued no quarantine orders – praised the school’s safety measures.
“My family was against sending him to in-person schooling, but (the district) has it seamlessly laid out,” Fidler said. “I’m super impressed with the teachers. Students are spaced out, everyone is wearing a mask (and) the principal and assistant principal have been very positive.”
The decision on whether to send kids back to school is a difficult one, said Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of South Florida. He emphasized the importance of the mitigation efforts school districts put in place before reopening.
“Schools have worked so hard to put these measures in place,” Salemi said. “We need to stay vigilant. You can see the writing on the wall. Cases have spread pretty rapidly in college towns.”
A tale of two campuses
Though state data does not show dramatic increases in positive tests among kids, the rate of infection has grown among some adults, primarily 18- to 25-year-olds.
Two counties – Alachua, with the University of Florida, and Leon, with Florida State University and Florida A&M – set records for cases in September. The number of young adult cases are rising even in counties without large campuses, the USA TODAY analysis found.
Many factors probably influence the contrast between college- and school-age cases, experts said.
When children go to school, they’re often in one classroom and under close supervision for most of the day. When they return home, many families limit social interactions.
Young adults might attend college classes with strict coronavirus precautions for only a couple of hours each day. The rest of the time, people in that age group tend to socialize with a broad group of people and work service jobs where they interact with dozens of strangers in a single shift.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says some university policies go too far in disciplining students for socializing amid the pandemic.
The differences between kids and young adults can be seen in the coronavirus data throughout Florida for the past couple months.
In Jacksonville, in the northeast corner of Florida, Duval County education stakeholders braced themselves when in-person school resumed Aug. 20. Elementary students attended daily, and middle and high schoolers were on a hybrid schedule that brought them to campus on alternating days. All grade levels had an option to take full-time virtual classes, although less than a third of students did.
Duval Schools Superintendent Diana Greene called the number of cases – 94 as of Friday – “manageable” for the district of about 111,000 students.
The number and rate of K-12-age cases in Duval County has remained consistently lower than those of college-age young adults since the start of fall semester. The community is home to several colleges, each of which tracks COVID-19 cases differently.
In the month before K-12 students returned to campus in Duval, 608 school-age children tested positive, and so did 974 young adults. In the month after school reopened, the state logged 312 cases among school-age children and 747 among young adults, according to the USA TODAY analysis.
More than half of COVID-19 cases reported by the school district are at elementary schools, where all instruction was in-person. The district expects to fully transition to daily in-person classes for secondary schools this week, and some stakeholders worry the case numbers will pick up.
“The dashboard is starting to show some higher case counts at certain schools and particularly among staff,” said Jennifer Cowart, a physician and parent. “If staff are already being affected at these schools under hybrid, and we go full brick and mortar, what happens to students and staff then?”
Safety at the cost of learning
The USA TODAY analysis for Florida mirrored findings from a nationwide survey of hundreds of schools by Brown University in partnership with the American Association of School Superintendents and other organizations.
The first set of data released last week showed low infection rates at 351 schools offering in-person instruction either daily or as part of a hybrid model: 0.08% of students and 0.14% of staff had a confirmed coronavirus infection in the past two weeks.
For perspective, about 0.17% of all Floridians tested positive in the past two weeks, according to state figures. During the state’s July peak, the figure was 0.74%.
As more schools join the anonymous, voluntary data collection effort, Brown University experts said they hope to provide more insight about which mitigation measures are most effective.
In many places, the steps schools must take to ensure the health of students and staff can prove a significant disruption.
In Bradford County in north central Florida, 43 students and 40 teachers tested positive for COVID-19 since classrooms reopened the last week of August, Assistant Superintendent David Harris said. Those positive cases resulted in about 640 students being sent home to isolate.
Story Collins and her mother protest at Duval County’s school board meeting July 14 against in-person classes as COVID-19 infections surge in Florida.
“Very, very few – less than five – of the kids who were quarantined tested positive,” he said. “We’re sending a lot of kids out of school for 14 days that don’t need to be. That’s our biggest issue. That’s a huge problem. …They’re falling behind.”
In some places, school leaders described a growing appetite, if not demand, from parents to roll back some of the safety policies because massive outbreaks have rarely been linked with school-based transmission and because so many students who are not ill have had to miss classes.
Last week, the school board in Miami-Dade County – one of Florida’s three districts granted an exemption to in-person learning because of high coronavirus case counts – voted to return to classrooms in mid-October. It has been instructing children virtually.
Other schools plan to roll back some safety precautions as cases drop.
“Our positivity rates are declining, and if we can maintain and hold lower positivity rates, it is very possible that we could revise recommendations,” Kristine Hollingsworth, a spokeswoman for the Health Department in Collier County in southwest Florida, wrote in an email.
When Collier’s reopening plan was announced, County Department of Health Director Stephanie Vick released guidelines that the district’s safety measures, such as masks, may be incrementally phased out or reduced once positivity falls.
More than five dozen positive cases were reported in Collier schools since nearly two-thirds of the district’s 47,000 students returned to classes Aug. 31, according to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard.
Even considering those relatively low case numbers, some Collier school board members worry that the number of students isolated because of close contact with an infected person affects learning.
“I’m still hearing from people who want restrictions to roll backwards,” board member Stephanie Lucarelli said.
The county’s school board members haven’t seen the numbers on students and staff who had to be quarantined. The district has not released that data to the public.
“To focus on quarantine numbers could lead to a series of inferences about COVID-19 positivity that may not be the case,” Chad Oliver, Collier’s district spokesman, wrote in an email. “We are mindful that positive cases and positivity rates are analytically different from students who may have to be quarantined that are not COVID positive.”
Health researchers hope the emergence of more data will help them answer the questions school leaders and parents have about what to do.
“Do you really need to shut down the whole classroom? Or do you only need to isolate a couple children who sat next to the infected person?” asked Auger, the doctor and researcher from Ohio. “We don’t know yet. We need more research.”
Students of the Pantheon university wearing face masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus attend a class in Paris – Michel Euler /AP
Schools and universities have become a major source of new Covid-19 infections in France, accounting for about a third of clusters detected in the past few days.
Until last week, many of the country’s new coronavirus cases had originated in workplaces. But Public Health France says the spread of Covid-19 is now accelerating faster in schools and universities, with 285 new clusters compared with 195 in workplaces.
Many teachers have complained that restrictions have been eased in schools and universities while they are being tightened for bars, rest and social gatherings.
The government, however, says only 19 schools are now closed because pupils or staff have caught the virus, compared with about 2,000 ten days ago. Jean-Michel Blanquer, the education minister, said: “This indicates that barrier measures are working and rules are being followed.”
The official figures group schools and universities together, but doctors are demanding a separate tally for universities. They argue that students are more likely to transmit the virus than schoolchildren and the start of the university term has increased the risk.
Patrick Goldstein, head of emergencies at Lille Teaching Hospital, said: “We know children aren’t highly contagious but students are vectors of contamination like any other adults.”
Coronavirus France Spotlight Chart – Cases default
Bars and restaurants in Marseille close from Monday for at least a week as President Emmanuel Macron tries to stave off a revolt over the restrictions. Marseille’s mayor and senator have spoken out against the measures, which they say were imposed by central government in Paris without properly consulting them. They have warned that many people may defy the new rules.
Restrictions are also being tightened from Monday in Paris, Lyon and nine other cities, with bars to close at 10pm. Gyms and sports centres will be closed and no more than 10 people will be allowed to gather together in public spaces. Weddings and other private social events will be limited to 30 people.
A schoolteacher whose body, face and tongue are covered in tattoos and who has had the whites of his eyes surgically turned black said he was prevented from teaching at a French kindergarten after a parent complained he scared their child.
But the teacher, Sylvain Helaine, 35, still teaches children from the age of six up, and said that, after an initial shock when they see him for the first time, his pupils see past his appearance.
“All of my students and their parents were always cool with me because basically they knew me,” said Mr Helaine, who estimated he has spent around 460 hours under the tattooists’ needle.
“It’s only when people see me from far away that they can assume the worst.”
Sylvain Helaine, who also goes by ‘Freaky Hood’, says his pupils see past his appearance after an initial shock – CHARLES PLATIAU /REUTERS
He said last year he was teaching kindergarten at the Docteur Morere Elementary School in Palaiseau, a suburb of Paris, when the parents of a three-year-old child complained to educational authorities. They said their son, who was not taught by Mr Helaine, had nightmares after seeing him.
A couple of months later the school authorities informed him he would no longer teach kindergarten children, he said. “I think the decision they took was quite sad,” added Mr Helaine.
A spokesman for the local education authority said an agreement was reached with Mr Helaine to move him away from teaching kindergarten. Pupils under six “could be frightened by his appearance”, the spokesman said.
Mr Helaine says that getting tattoos is his passion – CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT /AFP
Despite the setbacks, Mr Helaine said he would stick with his chosen career. “I’m a primary school teacher … I love my job.”
He said he started getting tattoos at the age of 27 when, while teaching at a private school in London, he had an “existential crisis”. Since then, he said, “Getting tattoos is my passion.”
He said he hoped to show his pupils that they should accept people who are different from the norm. “Maybe when they are adults they will be less racist and less homophobic and more open-minded,” he said.
*The exhausted head of a school in England wonders how much more he can take
Anonymous headteacher
Monday: parents say I am abusing their child’s human rights
Three weeks into the autumn term and we are all wrecked. I look around at my leadership team in our Monday morning meeting at 7.45am. Everyone is drained from poor sleep, working over the weekend and managing colleagues’ worries. Some are snappy and then quickly apologise, each frustrated with their own raw nerves.
Schools nearby have year groups at home because of Covid cases. We wait and anticipate. Our area is on moderate alert, and schools are on the front line.
I always get a kick from meeting students at the gate, but because of the staggered starts, that now takes hours. No matter how we try to keep bubbles separate, sibling groups arrive together and brothers and sisters lurk outside the gates until it’s their time to enter. Is it safer to have them there, or should we ask them to wander off along a busy main road where they will be interacting with others regardless?
Over the weekend I’ve received 15 emails from parents either arguing that our Covid-19 safety measures are not robust enough, or that Covid-19 is a hoax and by enforcing our safety measures I am abusing their child’s human rights. I have stock responses referencing official advice. I’m not engaging with these parents – it is too draining.
Picking up voicemails, a local resident feels too many children leaving the site dominate the pavements. Another can’t understand why I personally don’t have authority over parents parking across his drive.
Tuesday: two children try to escape
Today turns out to be “year 7 has issues” day. We have 240 new 11-year-olds from 25 primary schools. The vast majority have not been in formal education for six months and it shows – and not only in their reading ages and gaps in knowledge. None has enjoyed the proper transition experience: they have not visited us in person, met their new teachers, explored their way around, met others in their class, or been able to raise their own fears with parents or teachers.Advertisementhttps://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
Walking across the site I come across a year 7 boy trying to escape over our very high fence, flanked by two members of staff. The experienced staff cheerfully smile at me and whisper that he did the same thing last week too.
In the library I find staff trying to coax a year 7 girl out of the space she has crawled into under the book shelves. Another child had laughed at her choice of reading book. She is bribed out with the promise of a quiet space for the rest of the lesson.
An hour later I find a different pupil, a girl this time, climbing a different part of the fence. The two members of staff in attendance shrug at me and their smiles are far more worn this time. Standing around trying to talk down escaping children takes a lot of patience and time, as well as the follow-up pastoral care.
At lunch time there is a fight between two year 7 boys. Both are hurt, as is one member of staff. Children who witnessed it are crying and there is no way anyone can keep any sort of social distance. The aftermath of this fight (over a comment about football) takes four members of staff the rest of the afternoon.
I call my senior leader for safeguarding before I leave for the day. She is still with a year 7 child who disclosed a very serious allegation of abuse, and is waiting for the police and social services. She sends a text at 8:30pm to tell me she’s on her way home; she’ll be in at 7am tomorrow for more. We deal with situations like this all the time. And then there is Covid.
Wednesday: a wave of illness across the school
Mid-morning I am told we have a very sick student on site with a fever so bad he has sweated through his shirt. It seems to trigger a wave of illness where children develop Covid-related symptoms during the day. We have a robust procedure in place and so long as everyone adheres to the risk assessment, contact is severely limited. It is costing us a fortune in additional PPE and extra cleaning. We’ve had to use the supply teacher budget and it is not sustainable.
I spend the afternoon in an online meeting with other local headteachers. Several have had Covid cases. One head used the new DfE telephone number and had clear guidance within half an hour. Another was given different numbers and conflicting advice over two days. One school was advised to send every single child home; another only to send home children who had actually sat next to the sick boy in class. It is appalling that after so many months we can’t have a single coherent approach.
Thursday: our first confirmed case
Today we have a confirmed case, a boy in year 9. I make a long and exhausting call to his parents. We go through his movements and pinpoint when he started to feel unwell. When I phone the DfE helpline I’m connected almost immediately and the person is helpful. Because the pupil was a poor attender, he was not in school when incubating the virus, so no one has to self-isolate.
But staff are concerned. The ever-changing and frequently conflicting advice means no one is entirely certain whether or not they are at risk. There is a steady stream of worried staff at my door. One teacher nervous about possible contact has never knowingly met the child, but is keen to self-isolate regardless. This is the same member of staff I had to speak to sternly on the first day back because of enthusiastic hugging of colleagues.
Friday: I’m not sure how much more I can take
I’m utterly exhausted from an evening dealing with a shedload of parent emails and negative social media posts because one child has tested positive. I have accusations that we have kept other confirmed cases a secret, that I am Covid positive myself, and that I am breaking the law by not sending all students home. Some say Teacher X told children that they must not use hand sanitiser because it contains alcohol. Ludicrous. Many parents state they’ll never send their child back. This is ridiculous and I am fed up. I’ve worked every single day since February and I’m not sure how much more I can take. I spend some time flicking through jobs sites – any sector other than education – even though this has been my passion for nearly 30 years.
I’m interrupted by a call from my local authority. Could I make sure children who are off school in “isolation” stay at home instead of congregating at the shopping centre? No. I could not. How would I do that?
I teach a double lesson to year 8 and we enjoy the poetry of Maya Angelou together, celebrating life and being determined; it makes me feel better. After teaching, I wander the school and do all I can to be jovial, telling staff to leave on time and enjoy their weekends. When I bump into the head of year 7, he assures me no child has tried to climb the fence since Wednesday – that’s progress of a sort.
*Sadiya Umar Farouk, Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development
The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development has dissociated itself from reports that N2.67bn meant for the feeding of schoolchildren during the lockdown was diverted to private accounts.
In a statement issued on Monday night by the Special Assistant on Media to the ministry’s minister, Nneka Anibeze, the ministry stated that the statement by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission on the said funds was twisted and misinterpreted.
“The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development hereby informs the public that the Federal Government colleges school feeding in question is different from the Home Grown School Feeding which is one of its Social Investment Programmes,” it said in the statement.
It stated that the school feeding under scrutiny was the feeding of students in Federal Government colleges across the country.
“It is not under the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs which only oversees Home Grown School Feeding for children in Primaries one to three in select public schools across the country,” the ministry argued.
It added, “The ministry or the minister does not even handle or disburse funds for Home Grown School Feeding. The money for funding the programme neither passes through the minister nor the ministry.”
It explained that the over N2.5bn which was reportedly misappropriated by a senior civil servant took place in a different ministry and not the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities has threatened to sanction lecturers in Rivers State-owned universities if they resume lectures.
The ASUU National President, Abiodun Ogunyemi, stated this while reacting to the directive of the Rivers State Government that tertiary institutions, secondary and vocational schools to reopen on Monday, October 5.
Ogunyemi, who spoke on a radio, 92.3 Nigeria Info, in Port Harcourt and monitored by our correspondent, said ASUU had not exempted any of its branches from the ongoing strike.
“We have not exempted any branch of our union from the ongoing strike.
“Any branch that does that will be violating our directives and what we do in such situations is to take them through our procedure and apply appropriate sanctions.”
Also speaking, the Port Harcourt Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Uzo Onyebinama, said although the unions in Rivers State universities were on suspension for previously flouting the order of strike, it did not expect the members to resume classes.
More startling revelations have come out of the ongoing screening of all categories of civil servants in Niger State as 80% of staff of the state Ministry of Education have been uncovered to be in the service for several years with forged certificates.
Already, the principal actor of a syndicate behind the printing of the fake Certificates of the State College of Education, (COE), Minna has been arrested by the state Police Command.
Chairman of the Screening Committee and state Commissioner for Works, Engineer Ibrahim Mohammed Panti who made this known while answering questions from Journalists in Minna also disclosed that five members of staff of the Institution, (COE), Minna have also been arrested by the State Police and had made useful statements while investigations continue. The Commissioner said the suspected printer had admitted during interrogation that he had printed and sold out an unspecified number of such forged certificates to many students which they have used and still using to secure employment within and outside the state.
The Commissioner revealed that most of those uncovered to be having the fake certificates could not even write their names correctly neither could they communicate in simple English language. “The screening had been so revealing as 80% staff of the state Ministry of Education are not genuinely certificated. “During the exercise, many of them could not even write their names and could not also speak correct English. “Most of them are teachers and one would wonder the type of knowledge they would have been imparting on the students,” the Commissioner lamented.
Engineer Panti, however, declared that all those involved have been sacked and will be replaced soonest with those having genuine Certificates. “All the vacancies are going to be filled with people with genuine Certificates. “The essence of the Screening is to determine the actual staff strength of our workers and block all wastages through over-bloated salaries. “Certainly, the final outcome of the Screening will be beneficial to our Graduates because many of them genuinely certificated will be employed,” the Commissioner assured.
Engineer Panti disclosed that though he and members of the Screening Committee had been threatened severally by some faceless people suspected to be part of the culprits but added that the members will not be deterred in concluding the assignment given to them by the government.
Norway is behind in the fight against overweight and obesity, believe researchers at the Oslo Met, who recommend the introduction of school meals.
“It is important to prevent overweight and obesity,” Liv Elin Torheim, professor at the Oslo Met’s Faculty of Health Sciences, told the NRK.
“The conditions for a healthy diet during the childhood years must be established,” she says.
Torheim is one of 34 Norwegian experts in the Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI) who have reviewed the Norwegian authorities’ efforts to limit overweight and obesity in society. The project is part of the Policy Evaluation Network (PEN), in which five other European countries participate.
To overcome overweight and obesity, the panel recommends, among other things, free school meals. They also propose a differentiated sugar index, and the introduction of lower taxes on healthy foods, more regulation of the marketing of unhealthy foods to children, as well as clearer labeling of calorie content, fat, salt and sugar.
Afro-Global Education Deliveries 