Back-to-school roundup: 'We all know that this school year will be different'

By Sneh Duggal and Jessica Smith Cross

After nearly six months of school closures in Ontario, many students are making their way back to their classrooms this week amid a backdrop of rising COVID-19 cases.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce insisted that the "province is ready and we are prepared," saying the province's back-to-school plan offers "multiple layers of protection" to limit the spread of the virus. Meanwhile, Premier Doug Ford noted that in the lead up to the reopening of schools, the government got 37 million pieces of personal protective equipment out to school boards including 19.5 million masks and 16 million gloves.

"We all know that this school year will be different," said Ford. "It’s a good thing that our kids are getting back to school where they belong."

But he pleaded with Ontarians to follow public health guidelines and to stop having "big parties."

"What affects these school numbers with the cases of COVID is going to be community spread, I know that’s the case, that the higher the community spread is and the higher the numbers in the community, it’s going to affect the schools, it just goes hand-in-hand," said Ford as Ontario reported 185 new COVID-19 cases.

The premier's message was backed by Chief Medical Officer of Health David Williams, who added that by travelling into Ontario and not quarantining or by attending large gatherings without following public health guidelines, "you’re putting yourself, your children and then your school at risk."

Citing the case count, which has been above 130 cases each day for the past week, the NDP continued its call for the province to boost funding for lower class sizes and more distancing.

"As we heard today, infections are on the rise again in Ontario and we know that many children are being sent into a classroom environment where it won’t be possible to physically distance," said the party's education critic Marit Stiles.

Stiles also called on the government to post a list online of all the schools in the province with COVID-19 cases "while maintaining the privacy of students and staff."

Cases at five of Ottawa's French Catholic schools, which opened last week, have been reported, with Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vera Etches saying Tuesday that around 200 students and staff at these schools were told to self-isolate, according to a CBC report.

Updates on class sizes

Several other school boards are staggering their reopenings over the next few weeks, with students being scheduled to go in for orientation days to learn about new pandemic protocols before classes officially begin.

Some school boards have also started releasing their plans for class sizes — an issue that has dominated back-to-school conversations in recent weeks, with parents, educators and epidemiologists calling on the province to mandate smaller class sizes for elementary students. The government, in response, has pointed to funding that it has announced for boards to hire more educators.

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) said its portion of the $30 million in provincial funding allocated for hiring new teachers amounted to about 12.3 full-time equivalent staff, meaning an extra 10 classrooms. Federal funding added another 20.25 full-time equivalents or 17 additional classrooms, according to the board.

"The majority of these have been directed to elementary schools to reduce class sizes to the extent possible, although the impact of these positions, spread across a total of 1,700 classes, will be limited," the board stated.

The OCDSB explained in an update to families that class size caps and averages are based on provincial rules and funding and that it had to re-do its class size planning from the spring to accommodate both in-person and online classes.

"One way of meeting physical distancing requirements is to ensure maximum space for students attending school in person. With this in mind, every effort has been made to keep class sizes for in-person learning as low as possible. Classes above the average are more likely to occur in remote learning classes where students are not with an in-class cohort," the board stated.

The OCDSB outlined its June projections for elementary class size averages along with its revised projections for both in-person and remote classes. In-person kindergarten classes are expected to have an average of 22.4 students, while remote classes will be close to the provincial cap at 28.9 students. For grades 1-3, the in-person class average is projected to be 17.6 students, with the average for remote classes estimated to be 21.1 students. Grades 4-8 remote classes could see a much higher average at 33.8 students, while the in-person average is projected to be 22.2 students.

The board said some classes could have more students in them, namely at schools with "very high or very low enrolment, a large number of program offerings, and/or a large variance in the number of students per grade."

And while classes might be smaller for those attending school in person, schools "may have more combined grade classes," the board noted, with the reverse being true for remote learners.

For comparison, the OCDSB provided a synopsis of Ontario's pre-pandemic class size rules:

Meanwhile, the Toronto District School Board also said some schools could see "triple grades," in which classes are combined to have students in three different grades taught by one teacher.

"This is due to the fact that a large percentage of the school decided to enrol in the virtual school, thereby the remaining students across the grades only support the allocation of one teacher," a board spokesperson noted in an email. "For example, a school with enrolment of 7 students in grade four, 8 students in grade five and 8 students in grade six, would have a combined class of 23 students and one teacher."

The board has stated that communities at higher risk of COVID-19 transmission, as identified by Toronto Public Health, will see lower class sizes. Junior and senior kindergarten classes will capped at 15 students and grades 1-8 classes capped at 20. At schools in other areas, junior and senior kindergarten classes will be capped at 24 students, grades 1-3 at 20 students and grades 4-8 at 27 students.

Back-to-school video disgruntles some

As Ontario students head back to the classroom, they are learning how to be "infection prevention practitioners," the province's chief medical officer of health said in a video that has received some pushback during the past 24 hours.

Lecce tweeted the video of himself and Williams discussing public health measures on Sept. 7. In the video, which features the two sitting outside on log slabs, Lecce asks Williams to speak to students about how they can keep themselves and their families safe.

Dr. Williams - Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health - has ably guided our province throughout this pandemic.

He is calling on *all* of us to do our part and stay vigilant as students return to school. #StrongerTogether pic.twitter.com/gnAWHkaGiC

— Stephen Lecce (@Sflecce) September 7, 2020

Williams credited students with being "very good at taking up information and being very vigilant" and went on to cite behaviours students should adhere to such as distancing, masking, washing their hands and staying home if they're sick. He said students know the transmission of infectious diseases is "not magical," but biological.

"This is a good learning laboratory ... for them to do that and to practice that, because the better they do that in the school, the more likely and for sure that they're not going to bring it home with them, they're not going to contract it, they're not going to bring it home to their families," said Williams.

Ryan Imgrund, a biostatistician at Southlake Regional Health Centre and a high-school science teacher in York Region, responded to the video by pointing out that not all children will be wearing masks as the province has only mandated them for grades 4 to 12 students, although some boards are expanding that to include younger students. He also took issue with Williams' statement of "for sure that they're not going to bring it home with them," noting in a followup tweet that the measures Williams mentioned before that statement don't matter and the "ONLY thing leading to 'FOR SURE' not bringing it home is not going to school at all."

More LIES and more JOY MONGERING.🤥

1.Kids are NOT all masked.
2.Your return to “regular class sizes” means kids are NOT physically distanced.
3.“FOR SURE they aren’t going to bring it home.”

Number 3 isn’t just a lie - it’s completely IRRESPONSIBLE.

— Ryan Imgrund (@imgrund) September 7, 2020

Concerns over inequity and virtual school

Late last week the TDSB released statistics on how many students from each school opted for virtual learning.

Of those that submitted a response to the board, 30 per cent of elementary students and 22 per cent of high school students were registered for the virtual school option. The TDSB is still reaching out to families — it doesn't have responses yet for 10 per cent of elementary students and 22 per cent of high-school students.

The rates vary widely. For example, only 4 per cent of students at Etobicoke's Sunnylea Junior School are registered for virtual learning, while across town at Scarborough's Alexmuir Junior Public School 68 per cent of students did the same.

According to spokesman Ryan Bird, the board is still collecting information on how many students have opted out of the public school system entirely for homeschooling this year. He said the board's research department will also be looking into some factors that might be at play in families' decisions based on the board's student census data.

Education advocates have raised concerns about the unequal impact private "learning pods" and virtual education may have on students, just as the health impact of COVID-19 itself has been greater on lower-income and racialized Ontarians.

According to the initial information released by the board, the local schools with the lowest uptake in virtual learning are located in neighbourhoods with lower-than-average rates of COVID-19, fewer non-white residents and fewer low-income families, while the elementary schools with the highest proportion of students opting for virtual classes are located in three north Scarborough neighbourhoods — Agincourt, Milliken and Steeles.

Alice Romo, an education advocate with the Latinx, Afro-Latin-America, Abya Yala Education Network, said the geographical trends are a reflection of parents' fears about how COVID-19 will affect their children and families, based on their health and living circumstances.

"I think this speaks to inequities that exist already," she said. "We already had a problem with health and its relationship to income, and it's been exasperated by COVID-19."

Romo also said virtual learning itself could be unequal — as it will be far more difficult for students and their families to cope if they lack additional support that more privileged families can provide. She said if the province can make improvements to the safety precautions at public schools — including lowering class sizes — more families may decide to switch to in-person classes.