Western Australia's teachers' union has raised concerns about the number of students choosing not to wear a mask in the classroom as the state government insists mask-wearing remains a personal choice.
School resumes on Tuesday for much of the state and the State Schools Teachers Union (SSTUWA) is making a direct plea to parents to ensure their children wear a mask at school.
In recent days, the government has fended off calls from doctors and nurses for a return of the indoor mask mandate that was scrapped for most settings in late April.
The Premier and the Health Minister have instead said mask-wearing, indoors, is "strongly encouraged".
However, according to SSTUWA president Pat Byrne, teachers say "strong encouragement" does not cut it for many school students.
She said teachers were worried that, without a mask mandate for classrooms, COVID-19 will rapidly spread through schools again, infecting students and staff.
Ms Byrne said that, while teachers could not order children to wear a mask, perhaps their parents could.
"Schools really need the support of parents to ensure that students are wearing masks, for their own health, but also for the health of other people in the school," Ms Byrne said.
"A mandate is not for us to decide, that's for the Health Department, but we would encourage all of our members to be wearing masks, at all times, in a classroom situation.
"But they do need the support of parents. It's not very helpful if kids are saying, 'I'm not wearing a mask', and their parent isn't supporting the school."
The Health Minister, Amber-Jade Sanderson, said a program of distributing RATs in schools last term had been successful and would be repeated.
"We know that, when people are testing early and isolating early, we limit the spread," she said.
"So, we will be distributing RATs via schools this term, and we also encourage people to follow the close contact rules."
Ms Sanderson said there were no concerns about the supply of RATs in Western Australia.
No end in sight for school disruptions
West Australians have been warned to expect another COVID-19 peak in mid-to-late August, and that people risked being reinfected within four weeks of having COVID-19.
WA Health has recorded 2,533 reinfections in the state over the course of the pandemic so far.
According to the teachers' union, sourcing enough relief staff to cover COVID-19 furloughing continues to be a daily struggle for schools.
Ms Byrne said that many relief teachers had also decided it was simply not worth the health risk to take work right now.
"A lot of relief teachers are saying, 'Why would I do this right now. I'll just stay home and I'll just wait until this settles down'. So, it's a very difficult scenario," she said.
"Principals are completely stressed out and stretched in terms of being able to find the staff that they need to enable education programs to continue."
Ms Byrne said more and more teachers were also choosing to leave the sector altogether, and many with the most experience were retiring early.
"There's also the cost of people early in their career who decide, 'This is too much. I can't do this' and be expected to front up every day and provide interesting, exciting lessons — [they think] 'I don't know who is in my class. I don't know if I'm going to be able to run a class'," she said.
She warned that losing teachers at the early stages of their career would have a long-term impact on the workforce.
