Province announces return-to-school plan amid COVID concerns

By Mark Ribble

TORONTO — On Thursday, July 30, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Minister of Education Stephen Lecce announced the province’s plan to return children to school in Ontario.

The school year will begin on September 8 and the province is mandating that students wear cloth masks if they are in Grades 4 through 12.

Students under Grade 4 are not mandated to wear a mask.

In addition, all staff will be supplied with proper PPE at the cost of the province.

Most secondary schools will open with certain protocols in place. Some secondary students may attend some days and learn from home on other days.

“I won’t take any unnecessary risks,” said Premier Ford. “But we need to weigh the risk of COVID-19 to the harm of school closings.”

Ontario was the first province to close schools in March. Ford says they’ve invested about $300 million to hire more custodians and public health nurses specifically for the return-to-school plan.

Locally, Greater Essex County District School Board Director Erin Kelly, says they’ve been waiting for the announcement to come from the province.

“We’ve been meeting for some time now about a return-to-school plan,” she said. “Now we can get on with our plans.”

Kelly said that all elementary public schools in the district will re-open on Tuesday, September 8, with students enrolled full time, five days a week.

Secondary schools will go back on September 8 with an adaptive model, which means the schools will be at half capacity, with students alternating between in-school education and online classes.

Both levels will employ ‘cohorting’, which will limit the number of students and staff each pupil will come in contact with. Cohorting will be limited to about 50

in elementary levels and 100 in high school. The purpose of this is to mitigate the chance of spread and also allow for quick contact tracing should someone become infected.

For those parents who are nervous about sending their children back to school, Kelly is optimistic that it can be done safely.

“We will do everything in our power to create a safe environment for our students,” she said. “We also understand there will be anxiety.”

Kelly went on to say that parents will have the final choice on whether they send their kids to school or keep them home for online learning.

“I encourage the parents to communicate with their school principal as to whether their children will be in school or not,” she said.

According to Kelly, school bus companies have been in the loop as decisions have been made and are currently working out how to safely transport the students to and from school.

Prospective kindergarten students board a school bus in August, 2019 at Kingsville High School. The First Ride Program has been held annually to teach kids the importance of bus safety.

Over at Switzer-Carty Transportation, Leamington Branch Manager Karen O’Marra says the bus company is working closely with the school board and health unit to optimize safety.

“Our business is keeping children safe,” she said.

O’Marra expects that sanitization of the buses will be much different than before and that students may have assigned seating, with one student per seat.

A meeting in the coming days will solidify plans, but the consortium of which Switzer-Carty is a member, will take every precaution.

“Our main concerns are the safety of the children and our drivers,” she said. “We’ve been working on a plan since the beginning of the pandemic.”

Parents, teachers and school staff have many concerns about the return-to-school plan, but not a lot of answers, outside of the basic announcement, are available.

Leamington resident and retired teacher, Marena Woodsit, is concerned about the load that teachers will have to take on.

“I don’t know how a teacher will be able to handle the regular full time load and then have to teach virtually to those who opt to stay home,” she said. “The minister wasn’t clear how that would work but I believe that is burn-out in the making in the elementary sector.”