Trustees at Ottawa’s public school board are expected to vote on whether to require students and staff to wear masks, even though the province has said face coverings are no longer mandated.
Several school-board officials across the province say the easing of COVID-19 public-health measures in schools, including lifting mask mandates after March break, has led to an increase in absences among students and staff as the country navigates the sixth wave of the pandemic. Mark Fisher, a trustee in Ottawa who brought the motion forward, said that the level of COVID-19 in his area is worrying and is disrupting classrooms. Since the end of the March, daily class closures has been increasing at his school board, ranging from 11 to 38 on any given day. This week, 10 classrooms were closed on Monday and Tuesday. Closures generally last a day until a class can be adequately supervised.
A spokesperson for Ontario’s Education Minister Stephen Lecce referred The Globe and Mail to Chief Medical Officer of Health Kieran Moore’s comments on Monday, where he dismissed calls for a return to mandatory masking in schools. He said children remained at low risk for severe disease.In a letter to school boards on Monday, Vera Etches, Ottawa’s Medical Officer of Health, said officials anticipated an increase in transmission of the virus as restrictions were lifted in the spring.