TDSB’s careful rules for school reopening go beyond what Ontario requires

Thestar.com
Aug. 19, 2021
Maria Sarrouh

The Toronto District School Board is taking a more cautious approach toward reopening in the fall than what the province’s guidelines allow, placing firmer limits on student socializing and other gatherings like group singing.

At a special meeting Tuesday evening, the TDSB released its safety and health measures for a safe return to classrooms. The province’s guidelines for schools reopening allow for in-person gatherings and for students mingling outside their cohorts during recess or breaks outdoors, but in several ways the Toronto board will be following more stringent procedures than recommended by Ontario’s Ministry of Education.

Still, with around three weeks until the term starts in Toronto, protocols around health and physical education, extracurriculars, community use of schools, lunch procedures for secondary students and the use of musical instruments are yet to be outlined.

Despite the lack of clarity, families were required to indicate, through an online selection form, with a deadline of Aug. 12, whether their children will attend in-person learning or opt for virtual education. Parents and guardians of 86 per cent of both elementary and secondary students indicated their children would return to in-person learning.

TDSB elementary students will continue to take breaks only within cohorts; plans around recess and outdoor breaks for secondary students have yet to be released. Assemblies will remain virtual, unless held outdoors (weather permitting).

The ministry is allowing clubs, sport teams, bands and other extracurricular activities, as well as community use of schools, to resume.

According to the board’s protocols, students will be able to sing indoors only with masks, and outdoors without masks -- in both cases physically distanced, and within cohorts. The ministry’s guidance states that if students can’t be distanced, singing is still permitted, with masking simply encouraged. Also, Ontario states that wind instruments are allowed indoors where two metres of separation can be maintained. (If sharing instruments, they must be sanitized.)

The board’s and ministry’s procedures around assigned seating, masking and enhanced cleaning procedures on buses align. However, the province’s guidance asserts buses can operate at full capacity, while the Toronto board will not run its buses at 100 per cent right away -- special education students (excluding gifted) will begin using board transportation on Sept. 9, and all other students on Sept. 15.

As well, the ministry’s ventilation and HEPA filter instruction is to provide HEPA units in non-ventilated spaces occupied by students, including child-care spaces and EarlyON rooms. The TDSB will go beyond the guideline by ensuring a HEPA filter is available in all occupied classrooms, portable classrooms, wellness rooms, child-care spaces and EarlyON rooms, regardless of the type of ventilation in the school.

TDSB elementary students will continue to eat in classrooms or other spaces where physical distancing can be maintained. Per the ministry, lunch should take place outdoors when possible, cafeteria use is permitted with capacity limits, and secondary students can eat off-campus.

The board’s schools, families and teachers are situated across the Greater Toronto Area; a region that recorded some of the highest case counts in the province during the pandemic, and is seeing rising counts in the face of the highly infectious Delta variant.