Parents will be informed of COVID-19 when there is a 30% rate of absenteeism; Thoughts?

BY PAUL JUNOR

There have been alarms raised by many in the education sector about the provincial government’s decision to inform parents about COVID-19 in schools only when there is a 30% rate of absenteeism.

Ontario Education Minister Stephen Leece stated that, “We will be using the existing systems in place to capture student cases pivoting it to absenteeism. So the parents at home, the education staff and students themselves will be able to see those numbers on a school basis.”

Furthermore, it was reported “Only after a school hits a 30% absent rate would the school board, principal and local public health unit consider, but not automatically require them to move back to virtual learning.”

Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of health is supportive of this 30% absence threshold, as he believes that is reflective of the extent of COVID-19 community transmission. He states, “We do not think that given the variation in absences, a threshold of 30% would most likely reflect community COVID-19 activity and be a point where we would want to acknowledge that.”

The Ontario Ministry of Education is relying on masking, testing and vaccination to keep schools open rather than closing schools completely if there are only a few confirmed cases. This is different from the guidelines that were in place during the fall 2021 school term. The new guidelines have made it difficult for parents, guardians and caregivers to decide whether they should send their children to schools or not in the midst of limited information above COVID-19 cases in schools.

In light of this, the Ministry of Education announced that it would be sharing data about school closures and absenteeism. It is possible for concerned parents, caregivers or guardians to check the Ontario’s government website: www.ontario. ca to “Learn about closures and staff and student absences in publicly funded Ontario schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data is published every day at 10:30 a.m. excluding weekends and public holidays.”

The database revealed that as of Monday, January 24^th, 2022, eleven schools have been out of 4,844 schools due to operational impacts of COVID-19. It notes that the absence data that school boards report, include absences that may not be related to COVID-19. This means that there is no way of knowing for sure if student and staff absences are due to COVID-19 transmission in the schools.

CBC News reported on Monday, January 24^th, 2022 that  “More that 300 Ontario schools reported staff and student absences of more than 30% by the end of last week, after students returned for in-person learning following the latest pandemic-related shutdown.”  It states further, “The data includes all absences, not just those that might be related to COVID-19, making it tough to gauge the impact of the Omicron variant on Ontario’s school system now that the province is no longer publicly reporting cases in schools.”

Marit Stiles, NDP Education critic believes that the absence rates are misleading and does not provide adequate information. “The school COVID-19 data being released by the Ford government today is laughable vague and offers little usefulness. Parents across Ontario looking at this information will be left with more questions than answers. We cannot risk students’ health, or more school closures. The goal must be to keep every school open until June. To do that, the Ford government needs to reinstate testing, tracing and actual COVID-19 case reporting, so that parents are alerted whenever there’s an infection in their child’s classroom.”