Ontario set to end restrictions on school extracurricular activities

Thestar.com
Feb. 10. 2022

All extracurricular activities can return to Ontario schools starting immediately -- meaning high-contact sports such as hockey and basketball that have been sidelined will be given the go-ahead, as will choirs and wind instruments for music, the Star has learned.

As Ontario continues to slowly ease COVID-19 restrictions while the Omicron surge slows, the province’s chief medical officer of health will announce the new measures for schools at his Thursday news conference.

The move will allow elementary and secondary school athletes to play without masks, but wear them when they are back at the bench, sources told the Star.

The change comes as students clamour for more activities, and as a growing number of high school coaches voice concerns that community sports are restarting -- for families that can afford them -- while school-based teams were not.

Chief medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore and Education Minister Stephen Lecce are strong proponents of after-school sports and clubs. Last week, Lecce told school boards that resuming a full slate of extracurricular activities was a key priority. School board leaders have been calling for some action for the past three weeks.

Current restrictions have allowed sports that involved less contact, such as volleyball and ultimate Frisbee, but banned basketball, hockey and wrestling. Wind instrument and choirs were also not allowed.

Toronto Catholic high school student Stephanie De Castro said with school resuming last month after two weeks online, “it’s kind of easing back into normal life, and students really want to see volleyball, football and basketball.”

Extracurricular activities “are what keep students going” and help alleviate their stress at school and in general from the pandemic, said the Grade 11 student at Senator O’Connor College School, who is also public affairs co-ordinator for the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association.

De Castro said many of clubs are also online, and students want them back in-person as they are “a big aspect of socializing that kids want to see as well.”

Jazzlyn Abbott, a student at Valour JK-12 School in Petawawa, said students there have been bucket drumming instead of playing wind instruments.

Abbott, who is the public board council president of the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, said many students have been discouraged from taking music by having to learn an instrument they may not be interested in and studying more music theory, given the restrictions to date.

Behind the scenes, coaches have been lobbying for a return of high-contact sports, saying they are frustrated with the double standard when it comes to community sports.

Recently in Kingston, school coaches were cancelling games while seething at the news that a local weekend hockey tournament went ahead, bringing in 60 teams from around the province.

Frank Halligan, the athletic co-ordinator for the Kingston and Area Secondary School Athletic Association who is also a member of the Ontario Federation of Athletic Co-ordinators, said schools and coaches have worked to keep things safe.

His tracking shows that from September to December of last year -- which included Kingston’s early battle with the highly transmissible Omicron variant -- some 1,700 secondary student athletes competed in 373 games and cross-country running events in his region, just one of which was postponed when a coach tested positive for COVID-19. A student tested positive three days after another game, but no other players or coaches became ill.

Halligan said boards were able to get players fully vaccinated “and to have all of that happen and not be recognized was frustrating ... it didn’t make any sense that we were not allowed to go forward.”