Ontario lets school boards stagger first two weeks of new year as talks continue

Basketball nets have been removed at the closed Tomken Road Middle School in Mississauga, Ont., on March 31, 2020.In less than a month, millions of kids will return to school. What do parents need to know?Ontario school boards can stagger the first two weeks of children returning to classroom, the government says, as the Toronto District School Board looks at unused spaces for classrooms and targets more resources for schools in areas with high rates of COVID-19.

Jim Spyropoulos, the TDSB’s executive superintendent, said the board still needs to finalize what will happen over the midday period aside from students travelling back home. The board, the country’s largest, also planned to shorten elementary school days by 48 minutes, a move that would have kept classes between 15 and 20 students while ensuring teachers maintain their daily 48 minutes of preparation time.The government is now asking teachers to be flexible with their prep time, typically used to grade assignments, prepare lessons or conduct research – a request the province says teacher unions refuse to discuss.

This summer, experts from Toronto’s SickKids Hospital and the Public Health Agency of Canada both emphasized that smaller class sizes were crucial to maintaining physical distancing among children, and helping limit the spread of COVID-19. However, the task has proven difficult across the country, with provinces such as Alberta and Ontario not mandating smaller class sizes.

Several boards, including the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Halton District School Board , have been scrambling to rework timetables as the government changed direction with just weeks before school starts. The board, she said, had to pause its survey of how many students are returning to the classroom after Mr. Lecce changed direction.

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