After a break from offline schools, kids are getting back to school. Parents are still worried about the Omicron variant, but they often don't have a choice but to send their kids to school. If you are also worried, read about COVID cases in Toronto schools below.
Lack of Reporting
Since December 30, the province stopped
sharing COVID cases data in Toronto schools. Even the school boards are not
reporting the cases on their websites. The data on outbreaks is also not
available now. However, if there are confirmed cases of COVID in a school,
people who are directly impacted are being informed of it.
Vaccination Rules
The federal government recommends that
there be an eight-week gap between vaccination of kids. However, they can
reduce the time to just three weeks between two shots if parents want. At this
point, the gap is about six weeks.
Measures Taken
The province will share data on rates of
absence from next week, no matter whether they are COVID-related or not. Also,
the public health units will need to notify families if 30% of a school,
students, and staff are absent. They will not need to confirm if the absences
are due to COVID or not. Many schools have said they will share COVID data with
families if staff or students are willing to share it.
The Change
Students were expected to return to
classrooms at the beginning of the month, but the plans were changed due to the
rising cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. It strained the labor force
and the health system of the province.
Only last week, the government announced
that students can return to schools from Monday, but those plans were also
impacted.
Another Hurdle
When the students were planning to return
to school on Monday, the students' plans of six Toronto Secondary schools had
to be changed. The schools had to be closed for in-person learning for three
days due to the snow. A contractor who was hired to remove the snow from these
properties failed to do his job, stated the Toronto District School Board.
Students who were hoping to get back to the
classroom after two weeks of remote learning had mixed reactions to the news.
The winter storm that happened on Monday was good news for some and bad for
others.
In a message posted on Twitter, the TDSB
said that the delay in alerting parents was because it only learned of the
issue when staff arrived at schools on Wednesday morning. TDSB wrote, "We
apologize and are working with the contractors to get this resolved
immediately."
In addition to the senior secondary
schools, some elementary schools were partially plowed ahead of classes, but
those schools were kept open.
If you are a concerned parent who wants to
know about the schools that were impacted due to COVID, you can check the
entire list of schools that were impacted by COVID-19 here.
Read about Toronto’s COVID-19 guidelines here.
Sources:
https://thelocal.to/school-tracker/
https://www.ontario.ca/page/covid-19-cases-schools
https://www.tdsb.on.ca/WeatherAlert.aspx?from=%2fDefault.aspx%3fTabId%3d8305%26language%3den-US
https://www.cp24.com/
https://www.cp24.com/news/six-toronto-schools-closed-for-third-straight-day-after-contractor-failed-to-remove-snow-from-premises-1.5745868