South Australia's Premier has quickly shut down any talk of public schools finishing term 1 a week early due to the pressures of COVID-19.
The Australian Education Union yesterday said the early closure was needed to help schools and teachers regroup after a chaotic opening to the year that had seen thousands of students and teachers absent for COVID-related reasons.
However, Peter Malinauskas said starting school holidays earlier did not make sense.
He said it would not happen "if I’ve got anything to do with it — and I do".
"I just can't countenance the idea of extending school holidays by an entire week," he told ABC Radio Adelaide.
"The amount of disruptions that would cause parents, cause students, cause people who don't have fixed incomes, that is, they might not be public servants."
He said he spoke to Department for Education chief executive Rick Persse last night to explain his view.
Mr Persse yesterday said extending the Easter school holidays was "in the mix" and he planned to discuss it with the new Education Minister Blair Boyer.
Department figures show 491 teachers were absent on Wednesday because they had COVID-19, were isolating or were caring for someone else — about 200 more than at the start of the month.
Another 287 non-teaching staff were absent.
Out of all public school students, 3.5 per cent had COVID-19 or were isolating on Wednesday.
Australian Education Union state president Andrew Gohl had called for all four days of week 11 (April 11–14) to be declared pupil-free days.
Today, he said "all option have been explored" and he was worried for the safety of school and preschool staff.
"When you're combining classes, when you're having a constant changeover of staff in front of classes because teachers are sick, then the learning program that might have been considered at the start of the term is not the learning program that's going on at the moment," he said.
"I'd suggest that many classrooms are just managing children and students who are turning up to school and there's a disruption in any case."
South Australia recorded 4,742 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, the state's second-highest daily caseload on record since the start of the pandemic.
Another two men with COVID-19 died, one aged in his 60s and the other in his 70s.
A meeting of the Emergency Management Council sub-committee of cabinet will discuss easing close contact rules this morning.
