The Upper Grand District School Board is ready to return to in-person school on Monday as it waits for the official announcement from the Ministry of Education.
New safety measures in the school include N95 masks for staff, improved ventilation systems, a mask exemption note signed by a medical professional and an updated online screening tool for staff and students.
At UGDSB’s business operations committee on Tuesday, superintendent of program Tracey Lindsay said staff who returned to schools this week were required to complete COVID-19 prevention training
The board also has non-fit N95 masks for staff and three-ply cloth masks for students. Extra rapid antigen test kits are also available to staff and families of students.
“Classrooms have HEPA units and principals were asked to move additional units from empty classrooms into occupied classrooms. as needed. Schools were encouraged to keep windows open where possible and to encourage the use of outdoor spaces throughout the day. Although it's been very cool this week,” said Lindsay.
Executive superintendent of education Brent McDonald said the board was fortunate to expedite project competition by buying extra units and making numerous adjustments to ventilation systems while students were not in the building.
He said the UGDSB has 2,200 standalone HEPA units across learning spaces in elementary, secondary and continuing education spaces.
McDonald said while the previous exemption process only requires a parent's attestation that their child had a medical reason for an exemption, the new process requires a mask exemption certificate signed by a certified physician of medicine or nurse or nurse practitioner to be approved.
“All other requests for a mask exemption that fall outside of a medical exemption or those requirements would need to be vetted by the principal of the school, the superintendent and then finally approved by myself as the executive superintendent of education.,” said McDonald.
“As always, for students that have difficulty wearing a mask, administrators will continue to work with families to problem solve and look for opportunities for safe mask breaks for students.”
Superintendent of education Denise Heaslip said as per the ministry’s provided updates to health and safety guidance, the online screening tool includes new questions for staff and students to answer daily.
Director of education Peter Sovran said daily attendance will now be used as a proxy for daily case counts now that WDG Public Health is not reporting on COVID cases in schools.
Schools will calculate an average absence rate based on attendance dates from September 2021 to December 2021.
“We're going to use this figure as a baseline to compare daily absences, so as not to overstate potential COVID-related absences,” said Sovran.
He said if school A had an average daily absence rate of 10 per cent from September to December and on the first day of return to in-person learning the school has an absence rate of 15 per cent, the number that would be reported would be five per cent.
