THUNDER BAY - One of the questions surrounding the province’s back to school plan has been the process for dealing with an outbreak of COVID-19. Now that those guidelines have been released, there is still opposition to returning to normal class sizes, despite more than $380 million in federal funding supports.
On Wednesday, the provincial government released its guidelines for local health units and school boards on how to handle an outbreak of COVID-19.
The plan is meant to help schools identify and isolate suspected cases of COVID-19.
“If someone in a school, be it a student or a staff, tests positive for COVID-19, the school community is properly notified,” said Minister of Education Stephen Lecce.
“Immediate and rigorous contact tracing kicks in. In some cases the class cohorts will be tested, sent home, or closed until the outbreak is declared over by the local health officer.”
If the local health unit determines there is a high-risk of transmission to others, such as the classroom cohort, those individuals will be directed to isolate and testing is recommended.
Negative tests will not eliminate the need to isolate for 14 days.
Teachers will be expected to ensure learning continues for students who are isolating due to a positive case of COVID-19 or possible exposure and the principal and school boards will be required to immediately notify the school community.
“You will know very quickly if your child has come into contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19,” Lecce said.
The school board and administrative staff will also monitor the school population for any additional illnesses or symptoms.
If there is an outbreak, which is defined as two or more lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in a school with an epidemiological link within a 14-day period, the school board will work with the local health unit to detemrine which cohorts should isolate or if the entire school should close.
The outbreak is declared over after a 14 day period from the last associated case and no other individuals are showing any symptoms of the virus. A school can reopen before the outbreak is declared over if the health unit determines there is low-risk of transmission.
The province also announced Dr. Dirk Huyer, who was recently the Executive Lead for the COVID-19 Testing Approach at the Command Table and is the Chief Coroner for Ontario, will serve as coordinator of the provincial outbreak response.
The release of the COVID-19 outbreak guidelines follows an announcement on Wednesday by the federal government of $381 million in funding for the province’s reopening plan.
Premier Doug Ford said the funding will be used to enhance the plans the province already had in place.
“We will target that funding where the extra supports will be most effective,” Ford said. “For ventilation, shoring up PPE supplies, additional remote learning supports, enhancing safety measures on school buses, and hiring more teachers and hiring 125 more public health nurses for a total of 625 public health nurses in our schools.”
Of the funding, $200 will go toward the reopening plan implementation, including $100 million for health and safety components, $30 million for securing PPE, and $70 million for the temporary hiring of additional educators.
School transportation will see $70 million, while special education needs and mental health supports, as well as hiring additional public health nurses, will both receive $12.5 million and remote learning will receive $36 million.
“I won’t hesitate, not for a second, to take further action if we have to,” Ford said. “I won’t hesitate to do whatever it takes because the safety of our children will always be our number one priority.”
Despite the funding and the release of school outbreak guidelines, members of the official opposition are still calling out the government for not investing additional funding into reducing class sizes.
“It’s gut-wrenching for families and educators that Doug Ford continues to choose crowded classrooms instead of smaller, safer classes,” said opposition leader, Andrea Horwath said in a statement following the announcement.
“After today’s federal education funding announcement, Ford quickly threw cold water on any hope parents and educators had that he would replace his risky back-to-school scheme with a plan for a safe September. It’s clear from how he intends to spend the federal funds that Ford is digging in his heels — he won’t use the federal money to shrink class sizes for everyone, and he won’t chip in the funding needed to cap class sizes for everyone.”
