More and more students in Canada’s most populous province will be returning to their in-school classrooms over the next two weeks.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced a timetable yesterday, saying students in 13 public health units, including Hamilton and Windsor, will resume in-person learning on Monday.
Schools in Toronto, Peel Region and York Region will reopen on Feb. 16.
Before-and-after-school child-care programs will also resume in those regions on the same schedule.
An empty playground in a schoolyard is pictured in Toronto on Wednesday. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette)
It’s been a long run for about two million students at 4,800 publicly-funded schools since last March when Premier Doug Ford said he was shutting things down for two weeks after March Break due to concerns about the pandemic and then announcing in May that he was cancelling in-school classes for the rest of the academic year.
Students returned in September to a mix of rotating in-person and online classes, and elementary and secondary school students began January with online learning as part of a provincial lockdown.
Since then, the provincial government has taken a staggered approach to reopening physical classrooms.
Schools in northern Ontario reopened on Jan. 11 as lower rates of COVID-19 case growth were reported and students in Ottawa returned on Monday.
To date, more than 500,000 students in 19 of Ontario’s 34 public health units have now been given a green light to return to classrooms.
A student peers through the front door of the shuttered Thorncliffe Park Public School in Toronto on December 4, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn)
Lecce said he made the decision following consultations with provincial health authorities, including Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams.
“Ontario is ready to reopen our schools because it is safe,” he said.
Lecce said the government will monitor trends to ensure that elementary and secondary schools remain safe and $341 in federal funding has been allocated to enhance safety.
“Safety has and is what will drive our decisions every step of the way. We know how critical getting kids back to school is. We will not put your child and your family at risk,” Lecce said.
“I want to be clear: If things change, if trends move in the wrong direction, following the advice of the chief medical officer of health, we will not hesitate to act.”
Lecce introduced a series of enhanced measures to protect students, staff and teachers against the spread of COVID-19 in schools.
They include:
- Provincewide access, in consultation with local public health units, to targeted asymptomatic testing for students and staff.
- A mandatory masking requirement for students in grades 1 to 3 and a masking requirement for grades 1 to 12 outdoors where physical distancing cannot be maintained.
- Providing 3.5 million high-quality cloth masks to schools as a back-up supply for grade 1 to 12 students.
- Enhanced screening for secondary school students and staff.
- Guidance discouraging students from congregating before and after school.
- Temporary certification of eligible teacher candidates who are set to graduate in 2021 to stabilize staffing levels, following high levels of absenteeism.
“Our aim is to make sure schools remain safe,” Lecce said.
“We have followed the expert and medical advice of the chief medical officer of health and local medical officers of health. If they give us an indication that there is a risk to schools, to communities, or to your child and to our staff, what I mean is, I will not hesitate to act. Because, for us, this is a very clear message we’re sending to the population, we’re reopening because it is safe”
With files from CBC News, The Canadian Press
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