Ontario’s 4 major teacher unions discuss Ford government’s ‘flawed’ return to school plan

By Mark Douglas, Lucas Casaletto

The number of new COVID-19 cases in Ontario schools has now topped 700 with cases related to schools jumping by 111 on Wednesday.

This brings the total of cases in the province to 722, with 541 reported within the last 14 days and most of the new cases are among students.

The province’s four major teachers unions are speaking out against what they call the Ford government’s flawed return to school plan.

The unions say the latest news conference follows the decision by the Ontario labour relations board to dismiss their legal action over the health and safety of the school-re-opening plan.

Three experts, including doctor David Fisman – an epidemiologist at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, took part in Wednesday’s virtual conference.

“If you concentrate the remaining kids in large groups and enhance the risk of transmission, you’re going to enhance the risk of schools further getting downsized and parents further concerned about safety, and pulling their kids from schools,” Fisman says.

 

RELATED: Over 320 TDSB elementary schools to lose at least 1 in-person teacher in reorganization

 

Dr. Amy Greer, an expert in disease modelling and epidemiology, has concerns about collapsing classes and cohorts into larger groups and what she calls their ‘inevitable mixing’.


“It’s critical to reduce class sizes and school cohort sizes for students and education workers in order to improve that physical distancing part of the equation,” Greer tells 680 NEWS.


Other recommendations from the panel include getting a mask on every school child in every grade in every school in the province all the time.

And for ventilation, schools need filters on their forced air heating systems, or simple plug-in-the-wall portable HEPA filter machines for classrooms in older schools.

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