How do you ensure kids are back in class on Jan. 17?
How do you make sure Ontario's two million students are back in school Jan. 17?
Try N95s for all teachers and staff. Improve ventilation. Make sure everyone who is eligible has received their COVID-19 vaccines and boosters. Keep testing. And keep tracking cases in schools and report them publicly.
That's the list of must-haves from educators, school officials and other experts who say that without these improvements, online learning will be extended past the mid-January date Premier Doug Ford recently announced.
Ontario students are already suffering from being at home, learning in front of a screen yet again, given they have spent more time out of class than any others in North America since the pandemic began.
Some safety items - upgraded masks, more HEPA units - are already on the way, and priority vaccine clinics are underway.
Our hope is that sooner rather than later, we get the N95s in the hands of our education professionals, and we get rapid testing deployed so that we know where the cases are to keep the cases out of schools as much as we possibly can," said Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association.
We need to get the kids back in school - we're hearing that this time has been a little more difficult, for the most part, and kids want to be back at school."
Sources have told the Star the government is considering sending just high school students back on the 17th, because of higher vaccination rates for their age group. But there is consensus that kids need to be learning, in-person as soon as possible for their mental health and well-being and academic needs - including a plea from business leaders who took out a full-page ad in the Star making their case with a similar list of things the government must do to make that return safe.
Why are we having to beg for the bare minimum that will help protect us and our kids?" said Mississauga mother and teacher Allyson Bradley, whose daughters are seven and four. I feel like we do more to keep peanuts out of our schools than to keep COVID out."
While measures announced so far give Bradley some comfort, she said I cannot believe this took this long."
Minister of Education Stephen Lecce told the Star Ontario has consistently enhanced our measures to keep schools as safe as possible, going above public health guidance - including by accelerating boosters for education and child-care workers, deploying N95s for both as well, three-ply masks for all students and children, stricter screening, improvements to air ventilation in every school with more than 70,000 HEPA filter units in schools since the beginning of September, as well as 2,000 projected new staff hired to support safer schools."
The Star reached out to the province, school boards and public health officials to find out what's being done to ensure a safer return to school - and what more needs to take place.
Masks
Ontario is providing N95 masks for all school and child-care staff as an option along with the surgical masks previously provided - believed to be the only province to do so.
What we are hearing from our school boards is that masks are starting to arrive, and according to each board's own way of doing things, will be distributed out," said Abraham. They are a step up and safer than what we've previously been using. We are pleased about that."
Public boards in Toronto and York Region have already delivered masks to schools. Brendan Browne, director of the Toronto Catholic District School Board, said masks began arriving Friday and will be at all of our sites by Monday."
The province's chief medical officer of health has said quality, three-ply cloth masks will be given to kids in school, though some are calling for N95s for students, too. Masks are mandatory for all kids Grades 1 and up.
Screening
The province has already told schools they must resume the active daily COVID screening, and on Friday updated the COVID-19 symptom School Screening Tool for students, staff and visitors with a more sensitive list of symptoms for daily active screening of all students and staff in schools and child care. Previous symptoms of concern included fever and/or chills; cough or barking cough (croup); shortness of breath; decrease or loss of taste or smell; and nausea, vomiting and/or diarrhea. The updated screen includes new symptoms such as sore throat or difficulty swallowing, runny or stuffy nose, headache, extreme tiredness; muscle aches or joint pain.
Anyone who has symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 or is a confirmed positive case must self-isolate, regardless of vaccination status," wrote Deputy Education Minister Nancy Naylor in a memo to school boards. These strengthened screening requirements are another way that we are helping to protect students, education and child care workers, and children in child care from COVID-19."
Improved ventilation
The province - which has provided $600 million for school ventilation upgrades this past year - has also already given boards 70,000 HEPA air filters, with 3,000 more to come, serving about 4,800 schools. It has also provided funding for boards to assess all schools, and 99 per cent of schools are now using higher-grade filters or changing filters more frequently.
Schools without mechanical ventilation are required to have a HEPA filter in every classroom and space such as a gym or library. All kindergarten classrooms are to have HEPA units, regardless of the ventilation system in the school.
The Toronto District School Board has more than 16,000 units in use and is set to receive more, while York's public board is getting an extra 116 HEPA filter units, which will be prioritized for special education students attending in-person during the closures. Peel's public board will receive an additional 130 HEPA units.
Browne said the Toronto Catholic board already has HEPA filters in all classrooms, offices and common spaces and will use the extras to bolster what we have in place."
Critics have said the government should have funded more school ventilation upgrades months ago, since large projects like that take months to procure and finish.
Priority vaccinations
Daily first doses of COVID vaccines for kids aged 5-11 have plateaued after a strong start, to less than 5,000 a day in Ontario, down from a peak of almost 30,000 on Dec 4. Less than half of children in this age group have a first dose.
Boards have been holding clinics in schools to boost numbers among kids and efforts are being ramped up in coming weeks. Last week, the province rolled out priority booster clinics for educators, starting in the Greater Toronto Area.
On Saturday, Lecce and Solicitor General Sylvia Jones will announce a number of new clinics that will give third jabs, seven days a week to education and child-care staff, and the Toronto Zoo will host a mass vaccination effort. Some 10 clinics in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton area will also be open seven days a week, at the Eaton Centre and other Toronto locations, as well as in Mississauga, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Pickering, Oakville, Hamilton and Brampton.
Rapid tests
Last December, Lecce announced some 11 million rapid antigen tests would be sent home to students to use over the holidays.
Nearly 18 million rapid tests have been deployed to schools and child-care centres across the province since the start of the pandemic, and we are working to make rapid-antigen tests available to support the ongoing operations of child care centres, and schools when they return to in-person learning," he said.
Distribution (of rapid tests) is currently being prioritized for our most vulnerable sectors ... with the goal of preserving critical health human resource capacity and protecting individuals working and living in the highest risk settings," said Alexandra Hilkene, spokesperson for the Minister of Health.
Once Ontario receives sufficient supply of rapid tests, the province intends to make more available to child-care centres and schools."
PCR testing
The province has limited access to lab-based PCR testing to those on the front lines, and educators are not included, though many are lobbying for that to change.
Before the winter break, boards received take-home PCR test kits to supply about 10 per cent of enrolment. These take-home PCR tests are available to students and staff who are symptomatic. At this time, boards haven't received information regarding additional testing provisions or requirements.
Until the province increases its supply of rapid antigen tests, it says the PCR self-collection testing option in schools will continue with a focus on students and staff who develop symptoms commonly associated with COVID-19 while at school.
Reporting of case counts
In recent days, many were stunned to learn a provincial memo outlined changes to many COVID-19 protocols in schools, including no longer requiring provincial reporting of COVID-cases, meaning cohort-based dismissals would no longer take place.
But Ontario is not the only province to discontinue the practice - Nova Scotia, British Columbia and Alberta also have.
The Toronto public board is looking at how it might report cases when schools resume in-person learning, saying transparency with families is important.
Moving forward, it's unclear what will happen with case reporting. Dr. Lawrence Loh, the Medical Officer of Health for the Region of Peel, believes the province will issue updated case and contact management guidance specific for school and child-care settings.
Sources have told the Star given the province's restrictions on lab-based testing, and how case counts provincially don't give a full picture of what's going on, reporting school cases is also an issue given people have been advised to stay home if symptomatic and without a test.
Staff absences
Bracing for staff absences due to sickness or isolation, the Toronto public board is recruiting at all levels but especially for support and teaching staff. It wants to lessen the wait time before new hires start - for instance, police checks typically take six to eight weeks. It has also created a supply pool of support staff to be dispatched to schools.
The province has temporarily increased the number of days retired teachers, principals and vice-principals can be re-employed, from 50 to 95.
We hope that that will provide us with some assistance but it may not be the panacea that some may think," said Audley Salmon, executive superintendent of employee services, at a committee meeting this week.
Isabel Teotonio is a Toronto-based reporter covering education for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @Izzy74
Kristin Rushowy is a Toronto-based reporter covering Ontario politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @krushowy