Number of ACT public school staff unvaccinated

Despite having COVID-19 cases attend the campus in recent days, St Anthony's Parish Primary School in Wanniassa, Gordon Primary School and Wanniassa School senior campus stayed open for those not deemed close contacts.

Meanwhile, the Wanniassa School junior campus cluster stands at 26 cases as of 8pm on Wednesday. The campus will remain closed on Friday and a pop-up testing site was open in the school hall on Thursday.

An ACT Health spokeswoman said preliminary investigations had found one case connected to the cluster also attended the Southern Canberra Gymnastics Centre in Wanniassa. This was listed as a close contact site on Saturday morning.

Education Directorate director-general Katy Haire told the inquiry into the ACT's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic 28 teachers, 22 non-teachers and two school leaders had not provided proof of vaccination in line with the health directive.

Four of these staff members were on leave so the directorate had to find alternative work for 48 of the 52 staff members.

This included being moved to a high school or college where the mandate didn't apply or finding other work in primary schools which would not require direct contact with unvaccinated children.

Earlier in the week, the Education Directorate refused to give the number of school staff who had to be redeployed as a result of the mandate, claiming it would breach the privacy of those employees.

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Catholic Education Canberra Goulburn director Ross Fox said ACT Health had applied a more fine grain approach to the risk assessment at the St Anthony's Parish Primary School exposure.

"In this instance, it was one class and teachers who were present in the classroom for more than half an hour," Mr Fox said.

ACT Health takes into account the use of masks, vaccination status, the length of time spent inside with the infectious person and time spent doing higher-risk activities, such as sport, singing or playing instruments.

Cleaning requirements have also narrowed to include high-touch areas where the positive case spent time, rather than a deep clean of the entire campus.

These changes have allowed St Anthony's, Gordon Primary and Wanniassa School senior campus to remain open this week.

St Anthony's assistant principal Michael Bradley said students needed consistency, and many were happy the whole campus had not closed.

"It's not good for the children to be chopping and changing, going in and out of lockdowns," he said.

"The government [is] trying to keep schools open and as stable as possible. And most of our children today were very happy to see their friends again."

Mr Bradley said the school had sanitary stations set up, students were socially distanced and separated through pods, all teachers were double vaccinated and wearing masks.

"We're training all the children to do these sorts of things as well, because it's part of life at the moment and it could stay that way for a long time," he said.

Mr Fox said COVID safety measures and higher vaccination rates would keep children in classrooms.

"We're hopeful if there is a case that attends a school while unknowingly infectious that hopefully won't result in the school closure," he said.

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