Amidst a crushing third wave of COVID, Ontario students, families, teachers, and education workers are currently contending with the third shutdown of schools, and any in-person learning. Heart-breaking, overwhelming, disappointing, and stressful are just a few of the adjectives people have been sharing with us to describe how this feels. Ontario’s students deserve to get back to school and in-person learning as soon as safely possible.
What Could Have Been Done Differently?
While Fix Our Schools always endeavours to be forward-thinking and solution-oriented, we feel that a brief review of recent history is needed in order to learn, and move forward. And, recent history in Ontario clearly shows that our provincial government has consistently opted for inaction, the wrong actions, and downplaying the seriousness of COVID-19 instead of taking actions based on research, data, and the recommendations of its own Science Table and experts. Recent history also shows us that the Ford government has never truly prioritized the importance of publicly funded schools and education; and that our provincial government has never truly prioritized the health and well-being of Ontario’s students, families, teachers, and education workers.
In Spring 2020, a forward-looking provincial government could have taken the opportunity, while students learned at home, to conduct repairs and maintenance that can be challenging (and sometimes dangerous) to do while students are in school.
In May 2020, Fix Our Schools noted that “while it is clearly a challenging time in our education system, as students and teachers alike grapple with at-home learning, there would be a benefit to conducting construction projects in schools at this time. In recent years, the volume of reactive repairs needed at schools has necessitated that construction projects, such as roofing, often get done while students are trying to learn in these buildings. So a “silver lining” of this current pandemic situation, when children are absent from schools, is that many construction projects could get completed while these buildings are virtually empty.”
We have billions in school repairs, still have a housing crisis; #climateaction is still on horizon and a promise to make the built environment accessible, & decarobinize by 2030; invest in infra now; #architecture is #infrastructure @cathmckenna @TOAdamVaughan
— Toon_Dreessen (@Toon_Dreessen) April 28, 2020
In Summer 2020, the Ford government could have listened to the science, research, and data presented and invested the funding that was actually required to ensure that physical distancing was possible in all classrooms, that all classrooms had adequate ventilation, and that every school had adequate caretaking staff for hand hygiene to be easily accessible and available. As early as June 2020, SickKids cited proper ventilation as an important element in any safe return to school plan. At that point, Fix Our Schools began collecting information from across Ontario about the state of ventilation in Ontario’s schools.
We heard from dozens of parents, educators, and education workers across the province with a myriad of issues pertaining to ventilation, including classrooms without windows, windows that do not open at all or that only open a tiny bit, and some older schools and portables without HVAC systems to bring in fresh air from outside. Fix Our Schools shared those details and urged citizens to contact Premier Ford, Minister Lecce, and their local MPP to request adequate funding to address ventilation issues in schools and classrooms. However, the Ford government provided only $50-million of funding for ventilation improvements ($10,000 per school) in August 2020 – months after SickKids first identified ventilation as a key aspect of a safe return to school.
We remember last summer as Premier Ford and Minister Lecce were developing what was purported to be a safe back-to-school plan, that they ignored data, research, and science. Schools needed proper ventilation, physical distancing, & any standard of good repair. https://t.co/QPRFHqszzI
— Fix Our Schools (@Fix_Our_Schools) April 22, 2021
In Fall 2020, Ontario schools did open for in-person learning. However, a significant portion of families living in “hot spot communities”, where COVID rates were high, chose to keep their children home for online learning. Families made this difficult choice because the in-person learning options at local schools did not feel safe, knowing that community spread was significant. Throughout the Fall months, Minister Lecce and Premier Ford continued to claim Ontario’s schools were safe, without ever mentioning that their statistics relied heavily on families in hot spot communities keeping their children out of school to pursue online learning. This fact is rarely mentioned in media coverage of public education during the pandemic and represents yet another way in which marginalized communities have been disproportionately negatively impacted by the COVID pandemic.
In Winter 2021, our provincial government continued to ignore the recommendations of SickKids, medical professionals, public health professionals, education professionals, and, indeed, it ignored the recommendations of civil servants within the Ministry of Education when this government implemented only “half-measures” to ensure the safety of students and education workers in the classroom amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, it chose to politicize the issue of safe, healthy schools in the midst of a pandemic, and continued to underfund Ontario schools and its education system, all the while claiming it prioritized Ontario’s children.
As Spring 2021 continues to unfold, we have seen Premier Ford and his government choose to cling to the same playbook of inaction, ignorance, and playing politics amidst a horrific third wave that has overrun our ICUs and shuttered our schools once again. As one member of the Ontario Science Table, Andrew Morris, said after Ford’s announcements on Friday, April 16, “It was mind-boggling. I’m still in shock“. On April 20 2021 Ontario’s Science Table came forward with a very clearly articulated outline of what should have been done, and a clear plan for what still can be done to move forward and stem the tide of this crushing third wave.
The Way Forward
Doug Ford, please get to work on quickly implementing the recommendations clearly outlined by Ontario’s Science Table:
- Permit only truly essential indoor workplaces to stay open, and strictly enforce COVID-safety rules in those workplaces
- Pay essential workers to stay home when they are sick, exposed, and need time to get vaccinated
- Accelerate the vaccination of essential workers and those living in hot spots
- Limit mobility
- Focus on public health guidance that works, encouraging outdoor small gatherings, with physical distancing and masks
- Keep people safely connected, allowing people from different households to meet outdoors with masks and physical distance, and encouraging safe outdoor activities
Ontario’s children need to get back to school and in-person learning as soon as is safely possible. The ball is in your court Premier Ford. You’ve wasted critical weeks now on inaction, actions that make no sense or cause further harm, and on downplaying the health crisis in which we now find ourselves. The answers and the way forward have been presented to you time and again. Please step up now, and do what needs to be done to address the root causes of COVID spread and get Ontario’s students back to school.