In Ontario, there is a rush to get back to school. Bruce Arthur asks, Why the rush?
On Thursday, provincial Education Minister Stephen Lecce delivered yet another version of the school reopening plan. He primarily announced that school boards can now access a total of $500-million in reserve funds to hire extra staff, and to lease space in order to reduce class sizes and ensure social distancing. And there’s a total of $50-million to upgrade HVAC ventilation systems.
Which means three-and-a-half weeks to remake a lot of schools. Lecce first brushed off the idea that school openings could be delayed, though he said he was open to staggered starts over the first week. He said some school boards had already looked at leasing other spaces, and hiring more teachers, or upgrading ventilation systems in buildings that, at last check, were not always easy to upgrade. If you’ve ever seen how long it takes to make a school playground smaller and worse, you might be skeptical.
Evenly applied, $500-million is about $109,000 per each of the 4,600 schools in Ontario, and it will be case by case as to how many teachers, HVAC upgrades, and facility rentals that produces. The Toronto District School Board’s projected cost to create full-time,15-to-20 kid-per-class, enhanced-protocol schools in a prudent manner was at least $20-million.
We know that children do not suffer from COVID as adults do. But we do know they transmit the disease:
The science evolves: children, as it turns out, can get and transmit the virus effectively, even if they mercifully suffer it less, especially under the age of 10. But that means they can infect teachers, staff, parents, caregivers, and their social circles. And yes, Ontario’s community transmission is blessedly low. The point is nobody wants schools, as they have in some jurisdictions, to drive outbreaks.
Meanwhile, parent advocacy groups, Toronto Public Health, Peel Public Health, and the Public Health Agency of Canada suggested smaller class sizes. The Sick Kids reports the province so widely lauded said, “smaller class sizes should be a priority strategy as it will aid physical distancing and reduce potential spread from any index case,” which the province ignored before the CEO of Sick Kids reiterated it.
And Dr. Michael Warner, an infectious disease specialist and Toronto's Michael Garron Hospital says, “The plan cannot end at the doors of the school. It has to make sure that when people leave the school, communities are protected from the school.”
So why not take the time and money to do it right?
Image: forbes.com
8 comments:
That's a macabre scenario, isn't it? The idea that communities will have to be protected from schools. Teachers, support workers, students - a biological hazard. When mom rolls up in the SUV to collect Katie will she be wondering if she's at risk from her own child who has spent the day at risk from every other person in that building, on that playground? Mom fearing her child even as she knows that it was that child's parent's decision that created this exposure.
What's the plan when it goes wrong, when the first school or the second or third have a virus outbreak? Will the government pretend - or be able to convince the public - that these are just isolated instances and every other school and those students and their parents are not at the very same risk? What does the government do if attendance rates collapse? Is there some plan to force parents to deliver their children to schools against their will?
What happens if the public mood sours and the government comes to be seen by the public as willing to sacrifice children and their parents for the sake of re-opening the economy? That might sell on Bay Street but I can't see it going over on Main Street.
What do the professionals, the epidemiologists, the virologists, have to say about this? Is this a medical decision or a political decision?
As is so often the case, Mound, this strategy hasn't been thought through.
I don't see attendance rates collapsing. A lot of parents are more than eager to dump their little monsters on anyone available. A lot of kids are half indulged, half neglected and this produces a lot of behavior problems that normally other people have to endure, but which the parents can deny because they don't actually have much contact with their kid - normally, until now.
So what are schools going to do with kids who refuse to wear masks, socially distance or co-operate in any way?
I suspect that will be a big problem, ffd -- which will challenge the best teachers' class management skills.
re opening schools at this time for regular type classes is nothing sort of criminal neligence. If people die I'd suggest a few politicians be charged with manslaughter. COVID kills many. Kids can die from it or have life time lasting disabilities. People might want to remember the lasting disabilities we had from polio. Do we really need to go down this road? Not in my opinion. If kids loose a year of school its no big deal in the grand scheme of things. A kid or teacher dies, its a really big deal. there will be people who grieve for the rest of their lives. Who needs or wants that.
Some may argue a return to school will be a return to normalacy. If a kid dies, things will never be normal for those in the class room. You think kids have mental health problems right now, wait until one of their friends/class mates dies for not much of a reason at all. It will be see the shrink time for years.
Schools can be re opened, but on a very limited manner, perhaps one day a week for kids, so they can touch base with their teachers while engaging in home schooling or on line learning. that could work with masks and social distancing with perhaps a few kids in each group. It might work if it were the teachers who moved from class to class while the kids stayed, socially distanced in a class room. that might work for some older children, little kids perhaps not so much, which would require a later age for starting school, such as 7 or 8.
I expect many want the schools to re open so parents have a form of child care, but sending children off to school now, is like sending them to death camps. If that is what you want for your kid, perhaps you should put them up for adoption, because you sure don't care about your kids' lives. Children are supposed to be our most valuable asset.
Ford has done a reasonably decent job of handling the pandemic, to date. He needs to re consider this return to school.
I agree, e.a.f. Ford has done better than I expected. But his back to school plan is dangerous -- pure and simple.
So why not take the time and money to do it right?
The Ford Gov't is reverting to form?
I agree totally that "Ford has done better than I expected" but I have feared a reversion and it looks like this is the start.
I like e.a.f.'s idea of one day a week school, at least for the children. Even if teachers are in the classroom 5 days a week, reduced class sizes should allow better separation and reduce loads on ventilation systems.
It still sounds dicey for moost parts of the province.
Teachers can stay in class and students can go on alternate days, jrk. A teacher will see 30 students in two days. Other changes will need to be made to the school year. But it's do-able.
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