Return to school delayed until Wednesday for Ottawa students

Students in English public and Catholic schools in Ottawa and eastern Ontario will have an extended Christmas break as COVID-19 cases continue to rise across the province.

The Ontario government has announced the return to school for in-person learning will be pushed back to Wednesday, instead of Monday. There will be no virtual classes on Monday and Tuesday.

Classes were set to resume on Monday for students in the Ottawa Carleton District School Board, Ottawa Catholic School Board, Upper Canada District School Board, Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario, the Renfrew County District School Board and the Renfrew County Catholic School Board after the two-week break over the holidays.

The government said the two-day delay will allow time to deploy additional safety measures, including HEPA filters to school boards. 

"I, and colleagues from across Ontario, have always maintained that schools should be the last to close and the first to open. It's critical to the positive mental health and academic success of our children," said Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario's chief medical officer of health.

"This will provide our schools with extra time to begin to put in place additional health and safety measures, including deploying additional masking options for students and educators."

Ontario will provide non-fit-tested N95 masks for staff in schools and licensed child care settings as an "optional alternative" to medical/surgical masks. An additional 3,000 HEPA filter units will be deployed to school boards.

Starting in January, Ontario will temporarily permit only low-contact indoor sports and safe extra-curricular activities in schools.

In a letter to parents, guardians, students and teachers Thursday evening, the head of the Ottawa Carleton District School Board said there will be no online classes on Monday and Tuesday.

"There will be no in-person or remote learning on Monday, January 3rd and Tuesday, January 4th, 2022, in any OCDSB school, including OCV and Adult High School," said Camille Williams-Taylor, Director of Education.

"The education sector and all of Ontario received a considerable amount of information today.  We anticipate additional information and written direction for school districts and will need time to collaborate with Ottawa Public Health to understand how they plan to implement the new health measures locally."

More information will be sent to families by Monday evening.

Speaking before the government’s announcement, Ottawa Carleton District School Board Trustee Mark Fisher told CTV Morning Live he was hopeful schools would remain open despite cases rising.

"I definitely want to see schools remain open, I want my kids go to school, my kids want to go to school, but obviously we have to do that safely," Fisher said. "I'm confident that we can do that safely."

Fisher notes schools have HEPA filters in classrooms, and students and teachers have been practicing COVID safe measures.

"Over the last two years we've spent an incredible amount of money on ventilation, so we have that on our side. We have two years of practice when it comes to social distancing, hand washing, how we organize our schools – I think that works in our favour," Fisher said on Thursday morning. "Obviously, masking continues to work in our favour. We have a greater number of kids who are vaccinated, particularly in that high school cohort, in that older part in our elementary schools."

Ottawa epidemiologist Raywat Deonandan had called for schools to remain closed due to the spread of the Omicron variant.

"Given the isolation protocols and given the rate at which Omicron is spreading, if we open now chances are a lot of people are going to get exposed really, really fast and a lot of people therefore have to isolate," Deonandan said on CTV Morning Live.

"So if you're going to send teachers and kids home within a couple of weeks anyway, what's the point of opening right now unless we have different isolation procedures and controls."

Deonandan notes approximately one million students have not been vaccinated, and they will be exposed to the virus in schools.

"The risk is too great unless we put in place much better mitigation tools," Deonandan said, adding rapid tests, better masks for teachers and students and mandatory vaccination requirements for teachers would help provide a save environment for schools.

"I think if we were to add rapid antigen testing to a regular program of testing and surveillance throughout the week, I feel more confident as a parent that we can open our schools safely. But that requires the province to consider shutting other parts of the economy down," Fisher said.

Fisher says while school boards have "proven that we can open schools safely," the Omicron variant could impact the number of teachers available.

"The supply of teaching might be impacted by this variant, and that could certainly impact the way we manage our classrooms but also our schools safely."

The winter break for students with the Conseil des ecoles Catholiques du Centre-Est (CECCE) and the Conseil des ecoles publiques de l'Est de l'Ontario (CEPEO) will continue next week, with students scheduled to return to class on Jan. 10.