December 31, 2021
VIA EMAIL: doug.fordco@pc.ola.org
The Honorable Doug Ford
Premier of Ontario
Room 281
Legislative Building, Queen’s Park
Toronto, ON M7A 1A1
Dear Premier Ford,
On December 16, to protect our schools, communities, and families, we wrote you requesting the implementation of a number of measures to stem the surge of the highly infectious Omicron variant. We acknowledged that the measures suggested would require considerable political will, but urged their consideration so that in-person learning, and the considerable benefits it brings to students, could continue in January.
Yesterday, Ontario’s families learned once again that your government still refuses to implement the preventative measures called for by education and public health experts. Given the importance of in-person learning, we share the Ontario Science Table’s view that school closings “should be part of a pandemic control strategy in only the most catastrophic circumstances.”
Ontario’s students cannot afford a repeat of last January, with more school closures and learning disruptions.
We urge you to act immediately and implement the following measures to address COVID-19 in schools, so that students can safely enjoy the benefits of in-person learning:
• reduce class sizes to promote physical distancing;
• increase effective vaccination rates in our school communities by publicly promoting the importance of vaccination for students;
• prioritize access to booster shots for all education workers;
• add COVID-19 to the list of designated diseases in Ontario Regulation 261/13 Designated Diseases under the Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA);
• improve ventilation and install HEPA filters in ALL classrooms and public spaces in schools and campuses, with publicly available air quality metrics and standards;
• ensure the non-fit-tested N95 mask orders by school boards are filled and delivered immediately;
• provide the best possible masks to all students, with improved guidelines to ensure masking compliance;
• implement stricter screening and isolation requirements;
• implement a more robust testing and contact tracing regime, which includes providing all education staff with regular access to Rapid Antigen Tests, and prioritizing PCR test accessibility for both education workers and Ontario’s students should they register a positive result on their rapid tests; and
• reconsider the short-sighted decision to decrease the isolation period from 10 to five days, as doing so unnecessarily risks reintroducing the virus into school settings.
In addition to these school-specific measures, to reduce the risk of sick Ontarians from infecting their colleagues at work, we ask that you improve the temporary paid sick leave program, as the three days of limited benefits this program provides will be insufficient to prevent workplace outbreaks. We also ask that you ensure all workplaces, especially larger ones, have easy access to testing capacity to ensure employees are tested if they have any symptoms.
As we have previously communicated, we believe current circumstances require additional community-based infection prevention and control measures, as recommended by the Ontario Science Table, including more effective reduced-capacity rules, enforcement of vaccine passports, and masking in all indoor spaces.
These measures are now more necessary than ever for safe schools and sustainable in-class learning. As we have stated many times throughout this pandemic, we urge you to contact us to discuss how we can assist in the implementation of these measures.
Yours truly,
Karen Brown, President
Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario
Barb Dobrowolski, President
Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association
Karen Littlewood, President
Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation
Mike Morgan, Chair
Ontario Council of Educational Workers
Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President
Ontario Public Service Employees Union
Anne Vinet-Roy, présidente
Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens
Laura Walton, President
Ontario School Board Council of Unions – CUPE
cc :
VIA EMAIL: christine.elliott@pc.ola.org
The Honorable Christine Elliott
Minister of Health
5th Floor, 777 Bay St.
Toronto, ON M7A 2J3
VIA EMAIL: stephen.lecce@pc.ola.org
The Honorable Stephen Lecce
Minister of Education
5th Floor, 438 University Ave.
Toronto, ON M5G 2K8
January 3, 2022—Despite the fact that today’s announced restrictions and measures are necessary to help address the Omicron variant’s impact on our health care system, Premier Doug Ford and his government have, once again, failed to recognize all that is needed to keep schools safe. We have known about the virulence of this variant for over a month, and yet, even last week the Premier failed to acknowledge its impact and implement a meaningful plan for schools.
Premier Doug Ford told us today that we need to “brace for impact” but has failed to fortify the public school system to keep communities safe. Today’s announcement does not go nearly far enough. Without increasing access to COVID-19 testing, providing full access to enhanced PPE, guaranteeing priority access to booster vaccines for educators, ensuring HEPA filters are in place in schools, and reducing class sizes to allow for physical distancing, the Premier cannot say he is doing everything he can to protect students, staff, and communities.
Ford acknowledges, “that online learning isn’t ideal.” We are entering the third calendar year of the pandemic, and yet urgent and direct action to implement the required safety protocols to get students back to in-person learning has not happened. With the extended pause of in-person learning, the government has additional time to finally step up and protect students, staff, and communities.
Special education teachers and other education workers, including some educational assistants, custodians and other support staff, are returning this Wednesday to school buildings without assurances that proper safety measures will be in place on time. When students return to in-person learning in the coming weeks, they are still returning to large classes with limited ability to physically distance, varying access to PPE, inconsistent ventilation, and a lack of pro-active rapid testing and reporting.
The government has failed Ontario’s schools by:
• Cancelling contact tracing;
• Reducing access to PCR testing;
• Ending transparent reporting of case counts in schools;
• Excluding schools from occupancy caps similar to those for households and businesses;
• Failing to reduce class sizes to ensure REAL cohorting and physical distancing can be established and maintained;
• Failing to have N95 masks ready for deployment;
• Leaving education workers and teachers without priority access to vaccinations and boosters.
If the Ford government had implemented these protocols months ago, they would not be in this position. Instead, Doug Ford is lurching from crisis to crisis, and continuing to see the erosion of the public’s confidence in the government’s ability to handle this pandemic. We need the Premier to initiate lasting, effective actions to get us through these challenges. Our hope is that this government will provide more information and details to the public in the coming days. Today’s announcement, while necessary, insufficiently addresses what is required to make schools safe.
OSSTF/FEESO will continue to advocate for the safety of students, communities and its members.
Protecting and Enhancing Public Education Protéger et faire avancer l’éducation publique
Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation Fédération des enseignantes-enseignants
des écoles secondaires de l’Ontario
49 Mobile Drive, Toronto, Ontario M4A 1H5
TEL 416.751.8300
TEL 1.800.267.7867
FAX 416.751.3394
www.osstf.on.ca
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