London-area’s public school board is considering setting up a website where parents can voluntarily report COVID infections in schools now that they’re no longer being reported in Ontario school systems.
The Thames Valley District school board is considering setting up a website where parents can voluntarily report COVID infections in schools now that they’re no longer being reported in Ontario school systems.
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“I know this will be a conversation we will be having at the board table (Tuesday),” board chair Lori-Ann Pizzolato said.
Last week, the Ottawa-Carleton District school board said it will create a website where parents can check voluntary reports of COVID-19 cases at schools in order to decide whether to send their child to school.
No personal information would be shared.
When schools reopened for in-person learning on Jan. 17, the province no longer required them to share information about COVID-19 cases.
The province is no longer publishing information on COVID-19 cases in schools due a restricted testing policy but it began Monday to share data on absences online, whether or not they are related to the virus.
The province has said schools will have to report absences of more than 30 per cent to local public health units. It’s up to public health and the school board to discuss what should happen next, including if or when families will be notified.
NDP education critic Marit Stiles said the system is confusing for parents.
“It’s only reporting all absences, it’s not reporting on COVID cases. I think parents looking at this will have more questions than they have answers. Does this mean our school is meant to close again or what?” she said. “It’s difficult, as a parent, to know what any of that means.”
In the London area, there weren’t any schools with more than 30 per cent of students and staff absent late last week.
Franklin D. Roosevelt elementary school in east London had an absence rate of 29.5 per cent, and eight other Thames Valley schools had rates higher than 20 per cent.
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Bill Tucker, a former Thames Valley education director who now teaches at Western’s faculty of education, said teachers are feeling “a spectrum of emotion” as they return to the classroom, including “trepidation around the virulence of the Omicron contagion.”
Tucker said he’s not convinced a website “would be able to paint an accurate picture related specifically to COVID infections in schools.
“Transparency is key, so parents can make decisions about their children going to school,” he said. “Currently, the reality is that there are so many variables affecting staff absences.”
Five schools in the London District Catholic board had more than 20 per cent of staff and students absent late last week, including Catholic Central, St. Thomas Aquinas and Holy Cross secondary schools.
The decision to limit school case reporting disappointed researchers, who say they can’t track cases of COVID or where they come from because they lack data.
Prachi Srivastava, an education professor at Western University, said schools – as well as other institutions such as factories, places of worship and long-term care facilities – should be reporting their COVID cases numbers to the province.
“We’re going to school blind. I hope the government reverses its decision,” she said.
Without case data, “we don’t really know what the situation is,” Srivastava said.
“It makes no sense for a government not to want to know or at least collect that data,” she said. “You need to know what is going on to address a problem.”
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The province moved schools to remote learning at the end of the winter break as Omicron cases surged, overwhelming testing capabilities.
Cases used to be tracked through laboratory reports of positive PCR tests, but the province shut down that system, shifting to the use of rapid antigen tests for both students and staff at home.
Tea province’s website shares information about how many schools are closed, and also has a searchable table showing the combined absenteeism rate for staff and students by school.
The website shows data about the previous school day.
– With files from The Canadian Press