GUELPH – As the province enters the sixth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials at the Upper Grand District School Board (UGDSB) are encouraging everyone in the school community to continue to wear masks when indoors.
At an April 12 business operations committee meeting, trustees heard from director of education Peter Sovran on the current absence rates challenging the board and on the impacts of the sixth wave.
“It’s worth noting that both the combined staff and student absences in our schools has significantly increased after the March break,” he stated.
In an April 8 email to the Advertiser, UGDSB spokesperson Heather Loney confirmed the board has “noticed an increase in staff absences, specifically following the March Break.”
In the three-week period before March Break, Loney said the board’s average number of staff directly involved in schools absent per day (possibly due to COVID) was 74.3.
In the three weeks following March Break, which ended on March 21, the same day the mask mandate was removed by the province, the average number of staff absent per day (possibly due to COVID) was 101, an increase of 36%.
Sovran noted the board is taking measures each day to ensure it has staff in schools to provide ongoing learning for students and to ensure their safety and supervision.
“This has required an ongoing exhaustive list of teachers and other educational staff from our occasional list as well as those that are on our emergency deployment rosters,” he explained.
“We have not had to, in any measurable way, collapse classes, combine classes because of a lack of staff in a building at any given time, nor have we had to close schools temporarily because of a lack of staff and a lack of supervision.”
He added those measures do remain options if needed.
With the limitations of current PCR testing, trustee Mike Foley noted there are a lot of metrics being used by parents and guardians to do individual risk assessments to determine whether to send their child to school.
He asked what communication, if any, the board is providing to families on what the actual risks are right now and what guidance public health is currently recommending.
“There’s definitely a need for more information … [families are] looking for more itemized information,” said Foley.
“There’s so much confusion, so much cross information out there, I think we, along with public health, need to deliver a much clearer message.”
Sovran said the board is always striving to meet the needs of its students and families.
“We will be working with our public health unit to actively provide additional simplified communication in any way that we can, to continue to emphasize all of the public health measures that we know have been communicated,” said Sovran.
These measures, he explained, include daily screening, staying home if unwell, and practicing proper hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette.
“We are asking everyone if possible, although it’s not mandatory, to wear a mask indoors or in close proximity (to others),” Sovran stressed.
“We are reinforcing this message with our schools on a regular basis.
“We are preparing materials to distribute to our schools so that they may continue to emphasize this message.
“At this point, with our absenteeism rates continuing to climb we want to ensure that through our communication, our messaging and everyone’s cooperation implementing what has been strongly recommended by public health, that we can, together, get through this sixth wave.”
Transportation improvements
Trustee Jen Edwards also asked how the board was doing in terms of transportation challenges it had previously been facing with regards to bus driver shortages.
Executive superintendent of business operations Glen Regier confirmed the board’s bus situation has improved since January.
“We did a consolidation of routes earlier which improved matters and we also have seen … driver availability has been better,” Regier explained.
He added there are still ongoing challenges, and the board occasionally sees some routes take longer on certain days.
“Every time there’s a disruption we recognize that’s a disruption to the family,” he said.
“That includes routes that are delayed but we haven’t had any cancelled routes but … we have seen improvements and are continuing to monitor that.”
