Monthly Archives: January 2022

Back to School in Ontario: HEPA Filters and What Better Leadership Looks Like

January 25, 2022

With the return to in-person learning in Ontario amidst the Omicron wave of the pandemic, the state of indoor air quality and ventilation in Ontario classrooms is extremely relevant. In fact, Peter Juni, scientific director of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, was interviewed on January 13 on CBC’s “Ontario Today” program and stated that the Ontario Science Table wants to hear from any teacher who does not have a HEPA filter in their classroom.

If you know of classrooms without a HEPA filter, please email info@covid19-sciencetable.ca to let them know the name of the school, the school board, and the classroom, and please copy us at info@fixourschools.ca.

We’ve already seen some school’s ventilation reality on social media:

And we are grateful for the information compiled by Alison @errolenv on Twitter about HEPA filters in Ontario’s schools and classrooms. She has used data from various school board websites, noting that “a much better comparison would be if there was data on air quality for each classroom, but that information is not readily available”. However, with the more readily available data about HEPA filter distribution, she has noted the inequity in distribution, “where at least 6 boards have one HEPA per classroom, while others have 1 per school.”

 

In-person learning in Ontario schools has resumed. Students interviewed by CP24 shared their experiences to date, and expressed a range of concerns:

  • Low attendance in classes
  • Teachers provided with N95 masks, but not students
  • COVID-19 cases are not going to be properly tracked in schools so there will be no data available to assess the state of COVID-19 in schools
  • No proper test-to-return strategy after students are exposed to, or sick with COVID-19
  • Lunches at school remain a concern for spreading COVID-19

It is safe to say that parents, teachers, and education workers share these concerns, and are frustrated that schools and education have not been prioritized by the Ford government during the pandemic. Despite ongoing calls for additional safety measures to return to in-person learning more safely amidst the Omicron wave of the pandemic, the only additional measure announced by Stephen Lecce and Kieran Moore on January 12 was the provision of two rapid test kits to staff, then to children in daycares and students in public elementary schools, followed by high school students “pending availability”.

At the January 12 official announcement, Moore said that the distribution of two rapid tests would be “empowering” for parents and students due to their convenience. But we don’t empower others by removing information and resources. For many, a mere two rapid tests (with unclear instructions for how this action would serve students) felt like a download of accountability and responsibility.

Given that the rapid test kits come from the manufacturer in packages of FIVE and not TWO,  this policy decision also meant the downloading of the work to “de-kit” the rapid tests to school-based staff. The province either did not foresee this problem, or refused to fund the solution.

https://twitter.com/parentaction4ed/status/1483996153150644224

As we’ve noted time and again, with great power comes responsibility. Ontario’s provincial government has the power over all the funding for schools and education in this province – including the safety protocols needed amidst the pandemic. And yet our provincial government continues to refuse to acknowledge that they possess this power, let alone assume the responsibility that comes with that power.

We believe in a government that embraces not only accountability and responsibility, but also:

  • effective and timely communication,
  • authentic stakeholder engagement,
  • transparency

The Ford government’s track record for effective and timely communication is poor. The latest official announcement on the return to in-person learning on January 17 took place the afternoon of Wednesday, January 12th, but was first reported unofficially by the media on the evening of Monday, January 10. This untimely communication has consequences, especially for school boards. As Halton District School Board Trustee Andrea Grebenc notes, school boards can only move forward with plans and allocating resources once an official announcement is made by the provincial government. Therefore, this poor communication by the Ford government not only reduced planning time for school board staff but also eroded public confidence in our education system because as soon as the general public heard a media report, they assumed that school boards would have all the information and the official go ahead to move forward.

Why would the Ford government operate this way when it is clearly not in the best interest of children? Perhaps because it shifts the blame about incompetence from the provincial government to school boards since the school boards deal more directly with the general public. When the provincial government withholds information and fails to give timely authority to school boards, the school boards end up looking incompetent and being less prepared and capable.

In a complex, rapidly evolving scenario such as a global pandemic, we would also expect a government to work with all stakeholders in an authentic, consultative manner. Instead, the Ford government routinely ignores school boards and consistently fails to acknowledge the important role they play in actually make things happen in Ontario schools.

Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board sent the following letter to Education Minister Lecce, outlining their concerns about a total lack of consultation, lack of transparency, and inadequate provincial funding .

As school boards try to follow provincial direction while at the same time effectively work with their stakeholders, they find themselves consistently being placed in challenging, near impossible, situations. Ontarians need a provincial government that values and strives for accountability and responsibility; effective and timely communication; authentic stakeholder engagement; and transparency.

Safe, Healthy Schools: Not a Left or Right Issue – an Ontario issue

January 11, 2022

First, a message to Premier Ford and Education Minister Lecce:

A trial balloon is defined as “information sent out to the media in order to observe the reaction of an audience. It can be used by politicians who deliberately leak information on a policy change under consideration.” Premier Ford and Minister Lecce (wherever you may be amidst this crisis in public education) – is this a trial balloon or a formal announcement that Ontario’s children will return to school in-person on January 17?

If it is the latter – a formal announcement – then we look forward to a press conference very soon where you both provide a detailed explanation of what has been done/will be done to ensure that schools are in a safer and healthier position than they would have been had our children returned to school, as planned, last Monday, January 3. This announcement would include numbers and data that give us a level of confidence that your government has been tracking key indicators (community spread, reproduction rate, vaccination rates, hospitalization rates, hospital and ICU capacity, and the possible list goes on). This announcement would demonstrate how positive changes in these key indicators actually address the primary concerns that led you to announce the latest pivot to online learning – namely hospital system capacity and teacher “absenteeism“.

Ontarians deserve to understand how you are making decisions about our children’s lives and education. Transparency is necessary for any democracy to work effectively and efficiently, and Ontarians are looking through a frosted glass window covered with mud at this point. At various times during the pandemic, the Ford government seems to have relied on the Science Table, SickKids, local public health units, small businesses, large businesses, and popular opinion to inform decisions about Ontario’s children, schools and education. So, if this is, indeed, an announcement – we look forward to a transparent explanation.

If it is the former – a trial balloon – then shame on you for behaving in the most disrespectful of ways to Ontario’s children, parents, families, teachers, education workers, and employers. Anxiety, confusion, fear – these are the emotions your government perpetuates among its citizens by throwing out trial balloons. Ontarians deserve and need leadership – not to be a part of some marketing or polling exercise for the provincial election in June. 

Fix Our Schools wrote the following blog just prior to the news being released that Ontario’s children would be returning to in-person learning on January 17. The facts below remain so we are publishing this blog today, regardless of the latest news. Should this news end up being the trial balloon that we suspect that it is, we are guessing we will receive an actual formal announcement in about four days.

And now, the blog, as written prior to the news that Ontario’s schools will reopen January 17 (notice how the facts remain the same?)

Ontario’s students are now in their 28th week of online learning since the COVID-19 pandemic began almost two years ago. Ontario children have missed the most in-person school days of any jurisdiction in North America, despite the fact that our premier has disingenuously stated time and again throughout the pandemic that Ontario schools would be “first to open and last to close”.

This latest pivot to online learning was announced last Monday – the day that Ontario students were meant to be starting back to school after winter holidays – and has enraged Ontarians.

In a January 7, 2002 article in the Star entitled, “It’s disrespect”, says Toronto school advocate of latest school closures, Fix Our Schools supported People for Education’s calls to: resume school COVID case reporting; add COVID-19 vaccinations to list of mandatory vaccines to attend school; provide N95 masks to all educators and students and secure sufficient rapid tests; audit classroom HEPA filters; provide boards promised funding to enable smaller classes and physical distancing; and convene a COVID education advisory task force with health and education representatives.

Fix Our Schools also linked school closures to our economy. “Productivity in our economy is very much linked to schools and education. Somehow, that seems to be lost on the Ford government,” states Krista Wylie, co-founder of Fix Our Schools. She goes on to say that, “The Ford government time and again seem to view money spent on education as an expense rather than the investment that it is.”

In the same Star article, ETFO’s president Karen Jordan stated that “this shift to remote learning is frustrating because we know it could have been avoided had the province funded and implemented safety measures at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and not half-measures.” And OECTA president Barb Dobrowolski said that this latest Ford government decision was  “yet another reactionary measure in a long list that stems from this government’s abdication of leadership, which has repeatedly failed students, parents, teachers, education workers, and all Ontarians.”

Shawn Micallef adds to the discussion in his excellent opinion piece from January 8, 2022 entitled, “Doug Ford isn’t the first premier to drop the ball on making schools safe. Omicron highlight’s a decades-old problem”. He validates the current frustration among Ontarians by acknowledging that, “we’re coming up on two years of this pandemic and two years of the Ford government telling us everything is being done to make schools safe. We were told that during the break last summer, and the pandemic summer before that. And now we’re told two more weeks should be enough. How many times can they say this?” He then reflects how successive provincial governments of different political stripes have allowed Ontario’s publicly funded schools to deteriorate. “Inadequate and not-yet-upgraded HVAC systems, crowded classrooms and the poor state of repair have been endemic to Ontario’s school system. Public schools are one of our civic backbones and so many of them were built solidly, to last, as a statement that they and what they represent matter. All buildings age and need repairs and renovations to keep up with current standards of accessibility and safety. Ventilation upgrades, especially with climate change (pandemic notwithstanding) are a critical part of this.” 

Fix Our Schools echoes Micallef’s sentiments and agrees that current the state of Ontario’s schools is the result of over two decades of provincial governments failing to prioritize schools as critical infrastructure. As we stated back in August, 2020, when we wrote the blog entitled, “Our Provincial Government Cannot Continue to Rely on Miracles“, “it isn’t realistic to starve a system for over two decades and then expect that it is in tip-top shape for you in a pandemic.” Let this be a lesson for all provincial parties that schools are critical infrastructure. Full stop. Regardless of whether Ontario’s governing party is right-leaning or left-leaning, Ontario schools must be adequately funded to ensure they are safe, healthy, well-maintained places that provide environments conducive to learning and working – even amidst a pandemic. Had children, schools, and education been prioritized throughout the pandemic, much more in-person learning could have been possible. 

Dr. Picard’s January 9 opinion piece in the Globe & Mail entitled, “Of course schools should remain open. It’s the “how” that matters” aligned with this sentiment. He started by acknowledging that the debate over whether schools should be open or closed is “one of the most fiercely debated questions across Canada and around the world as we enter year three of the pandemic.” However, Picard then suggested that this was actually the wrong question, stating that “Of course schools should remain open. At the very least, they should be the last thing to close, because they are as essential as grocery stores and hospitals. Children need to learn, to socialize, to play, for the sake of their development, and their physical and mental health. Their parents need to work. How dare we tolerate school closings while still allowing in-person dining, nail salon manicures, professional sporting events and so much more? (Depending on the province, of course.) We need to get our priorities straight.” Instead, he recommended that we should be asking ourselves, “How can we best protect children from the ravages of the pandemic? Trying to prevent children from being infected is important, even if they do appear to have less severe outcomes. So too is protecting kids from collateral damage, like the mental health effects of isolation.”

New Hamburg mother Shannon Syder echoed Dr. Picard’s concern over the negative mental health impacts of school closures in the Toronto Star piece of January 9, 2022 entitled, “Is it up to our kids to sacrifice their education and mental health to save our hospitals?” Snyder wonders, “if everyone can agree on something, it should be that we should be prioritizing our kids and their education and their mental health. For me it comes down to this — is it up to our kids to sacrifice their education and mental health to save our hospitals? That just doesn’t make sense to me, and I think we need to have a real conversation about what these long-term effects are going to be if we stay on this path.”

However, perhaps this one letter from an Ontario parent to Premier Ford and Minister Lecce that we were copied on this past week says it best:

“I want you to know that ALL parents are talking about this week is how your government has completely failed us and our children. This wave has exposed your shortcomings, all the things that you said you were going to do to make schools safe, but that you haven’t fully followed through on.

My question is this – what are you doing RIGHT NOW to improve the safety at schools so that our kids can return on January 17? Testing plan, vaccination plan, masks, ventilation, etc. etc. I cannot believe that my kids can go to the mall but cannot go to school right now. You are making our children bear the brunt of this pandemic, so that you can keep your business constituents happy.

You said that schools would be the first to open, and the last to close, and you have failed on that promise. You will not get re-elected if you do not SAFELY open schools in a couple of weeks. Your time is up… Please take concrete actions today to make the schools safer to that they can re-open.”

Fix Our Schools has been urging the Ford government to prioritize safe, in-person learning for Ontario children amidst the COVID-19 pandemic since Spring of 2020, and we are not alone. The Ontario Science Table’s briefing from back in July, 2021 entitled, “School Operation for the 2021- 2022 Academic Year in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic” emphasized that education was “children’s essential work”, that schools are of critical importance to students’ learning and overall well-being, and that in-person schooling is optimal for the vast majority of students. Amy Greer, an infectious disease epidemiologist and math modeller, was one of the co-authors of this report and reminds us this week that this detailed plan existed back in July, 2021, and was ignored by Premier Ford and Minister Lecce. As a result of the Ford government’s “back to school plan”, which really simply relied on low community spread, Ontario’s children, families, employers, teachers, and education workers are all paying a high price now as we face another round of online learning.

 

Students, families, employers, teachers and education workers are all eager to know what exactly is being done to ensure a safe return to in-person learning as quickly as possible. We are also eager to understand what exactly needs to be in place for the Ford government to decide that children may safely return to school in-person? What indicators are being tracked that will tell us that in-person learning can safely resume?  Premier Ford and Minister Lecce – over to you! 

Ford Has Failed Ontario’s Children … Again

January 3, 2022

Premier Ford’s behaviour, policies, funding allocations, decisions, and lack of leadership have failed students, parents, families, teachers, and education workers time and again during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A quick overview of the past few weeks in Ontario’s public education:

  • After a press conference on Friday, December 17th announcing an initial plan to handle the challenge of Omicron, Premier Ford was absent from the public eye over the holiday season. During that time, the Omicron variant was wreaking havoc in Ontario, causing fear, and raising many questions and concerns.
  • On December 28, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer was meant to make an announcement, but this announcement was delayed.
  • On December 30, Ford’s government announced a two-day delay in school starting, suggesting that schools would somehow be safe for in-person learning by Wednesday, January 5th, as the Omicron variant continued to wreak havoc in Ontario.

Ottawa Citizen columnist Brigitte Pellerin raised many excellent points after this December 30th announcement in her piece entitled, “Doug Ford’s absence on school re-opening is an abdication of leadership: It’s not too much to ask for a government that treats school children and the people who teach them as a priority”. She notes that this government is not making kids the priority they need to be and that “the worst part is the silence”. She goes on to paint a picture of what leadership in this province could look like if Doug Ford had the courage to actually lead:

He would look us in the eye and say something like, “There are no easy answers. Omicron is worrying everyone. We are watching the following indicators to tell us whether we need to delay going back to school but either way we will make a decision by Dec. 27 so everyone has at least one week to prepare. And on top of buying N95 masks for every teacher and school staff not working alone in an office, we are sending truckloads of rapid antigen tests to school boards everywhere. I’ll be back here tomorrow to update you again, even if the situation hasn’t changed. And I will do my best to answer questions.”

  • Following Ford’s December 30th announcement, grave concerns immediately began surfacing from many experts, parents, teachers, education workers, politicians, and education advocates about the wisdom of the proposal to have 2-million children return to in-person learning on January 5th.
  • On December 31st, we learned that the memo sent by our Ministry of Education to school boards following the December 30th announcement outlined that Ontario would stop collecting COVID-19 numbers from schools, and suspend reporting of cases, continuing a longstanding Ford government tradition of lack of data and transparency.
  • Early on Sunday, January 2, the general public heard rumours of a 4 pm Cabinet Meeting.
  • As the day progressed on January 2, we continued to hear rumours about the Cabinet Meeting – and that a possible outcome was a switch to online learning for Ontario’s students.
  • We awoke on Monday, January 3rd only to continued speculation, and news of a press conference at 10 am by the Ford government.
  • The 10 am press conference was delayed to 11 am, and Education Minister Lecce was not going to be in attendance.
  • The 11 am press conference started almost 30 minutes late, and confirmed rumours that Ontario’s public education sector would, once again, have to pivot to online learning until at least January 17. Despite numerous questions from the press about what specific steps the Ford government would be taking in the coming two weeks to ensure that students could return to in-person learning after January 17th, no clear steps were outlined by the Ford government.

We agree with epidemiologist and advocate Colin Furness that online learning is dreadful and also a massive burden to so many families without the flexibility and/or resources to support at-home learning. We also agree that this decision was needed to help with infection control and child hospitalization.

Fix Our Schools recognizes that the past two years have been challenging for all governments. Governments, after all, are comprised of mere humans, and we have compassion that all humans have found the past two years challenging at times. However, with a more proactive, respectful, collaborative, and competent provincial government, we do believe that Ontario’s children and families would have been better served to date during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To that end, we look forward for a moment to June, 2022 when we have the opportunity to vote in a more proactive, respectful, collaborative, competent provincial government. Follow closely each of the parties that could govern our province, and demand platforms from each of these parties that reflect your priorities, and demand behaviour from these parties that reflects your values.

In the shorter-term, the Ford government is in charge of public education in this province for at least the next few months. With this in mind, now is the time to demand that Premier Ford start prioritizing students, schools and education. Ontario Parent Action Network (OPAN) is making it easy for all of us to take action so please take the time to call Premier Ford’s office in the coming days to let them know what you expect of his government.

https://twitter.com/parentaction4ed/status/1478073559532584960

Ontario’s students have always deserved safe, healthy, well-maintained schools that provide environments conducive to learning. After being an afterthought by the Ford government since March, 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Ontario’s students deserve this even more today.