MONTREAL -- Quebec's elementary and secondary school teachers are expressing worry about what will happen when children return to class as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

On Friday, the president of the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE), which represents more than 45,000 teachers in the province, issued a warning to the government.

“There are teachers who say 'I can't believe we're going to relive this,'” said Sylvain Mallette. “To live that one year is one thing but to start again... There are apprehensions.”

“It's always a little anxiety-provoking, but the pandemic adds to that weight,” he added, adding that teachers fear being forced to pivot between online and in-person learning once again.

Mallette said he had discussed the impending beginning of classes with Education Minister Jean-Francois Roberge on Thursday.

“The minister asked me 'Would you like a mask mandate?' I said, it depends on the pandemic situation. Does the mask help us effectively fight against the spread of the virus, especially the variants?”

On June 2, Roberge said the province was aiming for a 100 per cent return to normalcy in classrooms, with no masks or bubbles, if the epidemiological situation permits.

But Mallette said the situation has evolved.

“Teachers, what they want is to be safe and they want their students to be safe,” he said.

Mallette called for schools to have an accelerated screening mechanism implemented, such as having unvaccinated teachers tested for COVID-19 three times a week.

“If you make the choice to not get vaccinated, you assume the consequences of that choice,” he said, but would not go so far as to call for mandatory vaccination, saying: “We aren't there yet.”

But mandatory testing would allow parents, students and staff to know how many people at the schools have been vaccinated.

“It makes it possible to draw a portrait, to fully understand the situation,” he said, adding that he doesn't understand why the government isn't collecting that information while administering doses.

On Friday, the FAE reiterated its call for air quality to be improved in classrooms and for the half-class model to be reintroduced in event of COVID outbreaks.  

-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Aug. 6, 2021.