OTTAWA -- The Chair of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board of Trustees says they're not prepared yet for a return to school but she expects they will be by day one.

Last week, the OCDSB revised its back-to-school start dates, pushing the first day of school to Sept. 8, instead of Sept. 3 for some students as first planned. A staggered start will roll out from Sept. 8.

Speaking on Newstalk 580 CFRA's "The Goods with Dahlia Kurtz", school board trustee and board chair Lynn Scott said staff are working tirelessly to prepare for the first day of classes.

"Right now, as of today, no, we're not prepared yet," Scott said on Sunday morning, "but we will be prepared by the eighth of September."

Scott says board staff are working through the weekend to get class lists prepared and ready communications to parents. Scott says she expect more information to be released this coming week.

"There will be more information coming out to the community, I expect [Monday] on the staggered entry and some of the additional precautions that are being taken," she said.

Scott says the staggered start dates will be decided by each school, based on their unique circumstances.

"Each school will be having its own schedule for the staggered starts," Scott said. "Each school will be organizing that so that it will work for their particular school and building because our schools are all different. It's going to be easier, for example, for a school with more entrances to have children separated at the entrances. Each school will be getting a schedule out to their families and we will be rolling it out across the system over a period of a week and a bit."

The staggered start dates would see certain grade cohorts come back on different days, to give children time to learn and practice new routines with fewer students in the school to start.

Smaller class sizes

As CTV News reported on Saturday, the OCDSB is looking at reducing class sizes in some schools where the impact of COVID-19 is greater.

At the OCDSB special board meeting on Aug. 25, Superintendent Nadia Towaij said schools in areas identified by Ottawa Public Health would have smaller class sizes.

Speaking on Newstalk 580 CFRA on Sunday morning, Scott said the way it would work would be splitting certain classes that are larger than average into two, where possible, and where it is most needed.

"We don't have so many resources that we can bring the numbers down a lot, but where we can bring the numbers down a little, we will. It may not be all classes in the school and it may not be down to 15 students," she said. "If we have classes that are overlarge, beyond the average, and we're able to split them into two, that’s where we'll put an extra staff member. If the numbers are starting to approach 30 instead of 25, we'll do what we can to put in some extra staff so that we can keep them at 24 or 25 or even lower."

One week to get ready

Scott could not say definitively whether OCDSB teachers have their class assignments yet and said the Provincial government's changes forced the board to reorganize a lot of its plans.

"The last-minute change from the Province, in terms of our planning, meant that our schools had to completely reorganize. Not just our in-person schools but our virtual schools," Scott said. "Our principals and their administrative teams have been working flat out to organize classes now that they know how many children they're going to have and the assignments will be going to their teachers, I expect, this week, as early possible."

Scott said teachers need time to prepare, too.

"We are not at all sure that this is the best way to do it, but it's the way we have to do it given that we are, after all, in a pandemic," she said.

Vice-chair Keith Penny told Newstalk 580 CFRA the board and the staff are doing the best they can given the circumstances.

"It is tough for everyone concerned," he said. "I totally get it that it's difficult for the teachers to have a week to do it. I think that staff do have a good training plan. I guess the only message I can say is we're doing the best we can and they're working tirelessly to make it happen."

Penny says he fully believes schools will be safe this fall.

"We are a school board, so we need to our best to educate the children as well, but, yes, I'm confident that it's going to be safe."