Megan LeBlanc can’t wait for school to start for her two kids after the heartbreaking loss of their home in the Jasper National Park wildfires in July that destroyed a third of the buildings in the townsite.
Having stayed nearby and at a relative’s cabin in B.C. this summer while navigating fluctuating details after the fire, her family has landed a rental back in Jasper, where they’ll live as they rebuild their house, reopen the two liquor stores she and husband Marc own and operate, and get their kids into class back at home.
“I’m worried about students that aren’t returning. I’m worried about teachers who aren’t returning. But I know that if they’re there, [they will] make it feel normal, to support the kids both from an academic standpoint, but also an emotional standpoint,” LeBlanc said recently from neighbouring Hinton, located about 80 kilometres from Jasper.
“It’s not going to be a normal school year, at least to start, but my big theme in all of this is just to remain hopeful, because that’s all you can do.”
As students across Canada start school anew, kids from Jasper are waiting a bit longer to reunite with teachers and friends. Their timely return to safe classrooms, with clean air and careful tracking of students’ mental health, are among top priorities for Jasper educators. However, with the increasing prevalence of wildfires, flooding and other extreme weather events, experts say school officials everywhere must be making plans for climate-related emergencies.
Jasper’s schools are to reopen Sept. 17, mere weeks later than scheduled, due to everyone’s drive to get buildings ready ASAP for the approximately 470 students from K-12, said Carolyn Lewis-Shillington, chief superintendent of the Grande Yellowhead Public School Division (GYPSD).
Ventilation systems were switched off remotely during evacuation, but ash and smoke from the fires — which destroyed more than 350 of Jasper’s 1,113 buildings, Parks Canada said — entered through windows left open for cooling during that hot summer stretch. Once officials cleared people to return, Lewis-Shillington said, division facilities staff worked alongside insurers, contractors and specialists to determine how to proceed.
“We’ve never stopped since.”
More than 200 people have spent five- to six-day weeks sanitizing (from wiping down library books to washing every piece of cutlery), cleaning ducts, replacing ceiling tiles, installing air purifiers, UV-cleaning computers, junking irreparable items and more. Restoration costs are estimated at over $10 million, Lewis-Shillington said, with the division paying an insurance deductible of about $500,000.
“We will test the air inside the building after the restorations are completed and before students return. After that, external air quality monitors will be the standard measure.”
Anyone who’s had a face full of campfire smoke knows about immediate impacts — like coughing, irritated eyes and throat — but there’s the long term to consider, too, said Dr. Joe Vipond. The Calgary emergency physician hopes to see an extensive cleaning effort, but he also encourages ongoing attention.
In mass burn events, it’s not just wood going up in flame but plastics and other human-made materials, from cars, homes and buildings, which let out toxins in the process.
So continued air quality monitoring and a strong ventilation maintenance policy is needed, he added, as future remediation and reconstruction efforts in town disturb the ground.
“That’s going to be a long-standing problem that doesn’t go away once the smoke dissipates. That’s lying on the ground and needs to be managed,” said the past president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.
“There’s even more evidence implicating air quality in such things as cancer, and so it’s really important that we recognize that — not just for the kids, but for the teachers that might be exposed to these conditions long term.”
Take time to monitor students’ mental health
GYPSD is also pulling together mental health supports from across the small division, which stretches across a large geographic region. Family-school liaison counselors, health navigators and psychologists will be on hand in Jasper and Hinton, Lewis-Shillington said. An outside trauma counselor will also work with and advise staff and teachers.
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Watching for trauma — which could pop up as kids being upset, emotionally fragile or more disruptive in class, for instance — and supporting them over time is key, said Edmonton psychiatrist Dr. Peter Silverstone, a University of Alberta researcher who studied student mental health following the 2016 wildfires in Fort McMurray, Alta.
Students may be struggling with layers of disruption, from the stress of losing or relocating homes to parents being out of work to friends, teachers or coaches not returning.
“Don’t think three or six weeks. Think three or six months before you start to even begin to really get things back to normal,” he said.
“My learnings from Fort McMurray are that this is severe and long-lasting. Many children and youth had problems for three years afterwards.”
More emergency planning required
Silverstone also wants to see provincial and federal officials increase funding toward planning for and supporting young people’s mental health care needs amid climate emergencies.
“We do need a series of turnkey solutions or approaches … anybody can use. I don’t think it’s fair on Jasper to say, ‘Please reinvent the wheel,’ when we know it’s going to happen somewhere else where there’s a flood or a fire or tornado,” he said.
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Balan Moorthy has endured wildfires, major snowstorms, flooding and landslides washing out highways and stranding people — all during COVID-19 and with his schools often serving as evacuation centres.
Emergency planning — ensuring that you’re ready to react to the unpredictable — is where we are in education now,” the superintendent of British Columbia’s Fraser-Cascade School District said from Agassiz, B.C.
“There’s a level of readiness that is critical that you have: that means [your staff] are ready … to make adjustments and adaptations and have strong emergency plans in place.”
Several of his senior district leaders took a training course with Fraser Valley emergency management authorities, for instance, with whom they also meet to discuss joint emergency plans.
Set to move back to Jasper, Grade 4 student Theodore LeBlanc feels happy, but also curious about who will (and won’t) be at school. This year, at least, he isn’t dreading that first-day tradition of students recounting summer exploits.
“I’m actually gonna enjoy it because I feel like people are going to have a lot to say about the fire and what happened,” the nine-year-old noted. “It’s gonna be very interesting to hear instead of … ‘I went to Winnipeg and went bowling.'”