Plenty of opposition to a provincial decision to keep schools closed an extra two weeks.
Schools will shift to online learning starting Wednesday until at least January 17.
Liberal leader Steven Del Duca says students and parents deserve better.
“They (government) told us that it wasn’t necessary just days ago and now they are suggesting that it’s needed. There is something fundamentally wrong with this entire whiplash effect, back and forth, of schools opening and closing. So much unknown out there from the presentations we hear.”
Del Duca calls the return to virtual learning another brutal blow to students and parents, who were looking forward to a normal school year.
NDP leader Andrea Horwath says another school shutdown is a massive blow to kids’ well-being.
Horwath says the government could have avoided the measure with steps like smaller class sizes, additional resources and vaccine clinics in schools.
“Doug Ford has said, from his own lips, schools should be the last to close and the first to open. And of course we don’t see that as being the government’s priority.”
The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association has issued a statement stating, “Throughout the pandemic, the Ford government has opted for a wait-and-see approach to COVID-19, and then scrambled to make last-minute decisions that offer little more than half-measures. Today’s (Monday) decision, coming just four days after their last ‘plan’ was announced, was entirely avoidable. This is yet again 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.”
The OECTA is calling on the government to:
-Prioritize access to booster shots for all teachers and education workers;
-Make additional rapid antigen tests available to everyone in schools;
-Reinstitute case count reporting and implement a comprehensive COVID-19 testing and tracing program;
-Immediately provide all teachers and education workers with N95 masks, as well as the best possible masks to all students, with improved guidelines to ensure masking compliance;
-Reduce class sizes to promote physical distancing;
-Improve ventilation and install HEPA filters in all classrooms and public areas in schools, with publicly available air quality metrics and standards, in recognition and acceptance of the fact that the virus is airborne.
(With Files From Randy Thoms: Fort Frances)
