The province’s new website for reporting school closures due to COVID-19 shows some schools reporting a rise in absenteeism among staff and students.
Schools like Downsview Secondary School reported a rise from 32 to 33.6 per cent.
Green party leader Mike Schreiner says parents should have learned about cases like that well in advance.
“It’s ridiculous that parents have to wait until 30 per cent of students and staff are absent before being notified. Enough with keeping parents in the dark. We need transparency now,” Ontario Green party leader Mike Schreiner told Humber News.
Dr. Josh Fletcher of North York General Hospital says that the reported school absences are fairly in-line with that of hospitalizations.
“With regards to any sort of concern, moving back to classrooms, of course, you’re going to see an uptick in, in absences in cases with more people congregating in classroom settings. But on the flip side of that you have the benefit of being in person for education,” Dr. Fletcher said.
There is also a benefit in separating one’s self from the daily COVID reporting, Dr. Fletcher says.
“It’s not healthy to keep refreshing the case count every second and seeing whether it’s going up or down. It can give us an idea of what the general numbers are in the population. But at the same time, it doesn’t really give us any data about what those infections look like,” he said.
Patrick Casey, the director of communications for the Municipality of York said that schools are still safe to be open despite the reported numbers.
“Public health agrees the physical, mental and social well-being of children is best served with kids in the classroom as opposed to learning at home in virtual environments,” Casey said.
Around 87 per cent of children ages 12-17 are double vaccinated with 12 per cent of ages 5-11 having their double dose in York region, according to Casey. Despite this, Omicron continues to loom over the province.
Humber News reached out to the Peel District School Board and was provided a statement saying, “We will make every effort to safely keep classes open, including the placement of central educators and retired teachers in schools, as per Ministry of Education direction” they said.
While the province aims to keep schools open despite the reported numbers, what is still lacking is proper attention to individual classrooms.
HEPA air filters were promised to schools by Education Minister Stephen Lecce back in August 2021. More than 70,000 units are now used in schools for locations such as libraries, gyms and classrooms, but that still isn’t enough according to Kaden Johnson.
“I’d like to see students receive K95 and KN95 masks, and what we did receive didn’t fit many of the elementary kids, which is a problem because if they can’t fit there’s really no point in having it,” the Grade 11 student said.
As it stands, the Ford government and Minister Lecce stand by the decision to keep children in school amidst the Omicron wave with restrictions in the province expected to loosen on Jan. 31.