Schools should be 'last to close' if there's a lockdown, HWDSB chair on what to expect this fall

If there is another province-wide lockdown due to COVID-19, Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board chairDawn Danko says schools "should absolutely be the last thing that must close."

Dankospoke with the CBC's Conrad Collacoabout what students, parents, teachers and other school staff can expect as students return to class in September in a live interview Thursday Aug. 26 that included her responses to a series of questions that came in from members of the public.

Read anedited and abridged transcript below or hit play above and watch the entire interview.

Dawn Danko, HWDSB chair

From Allison on Twitter: Is the HWDSB going to follow the provincial guidance and not require masks for kindergarten students, or are they going to introduce their own mask mandate?

Wemoved a motion last year that required kindergarten to grade 12 to have masks be mandatory outside of the provincial direction. And I can confirm that we will be continuing with that policy. Both boards and Hamilton will require masks for kindergarten. We do have reasonable exceptions. And we know that our youngest learners do have a little more difficulty wearing masks. So, we have strategies in place for mask breaks. And one thing that people will see is different this year in the provincial guidance is that masks are not required by the province to be worn outside. And I do want to have a little caveat to that. We are working with Hamilton Public Health to finalize all of our protocols. And what happens is we have to consider our local community context. So, if we have a lot of cases in the community we may need to start requiring masks outside, even temporarily but our ultimate goal this year is to start lifting restrictive measures, lifting some measures whereit's safe to do so.

From Anna:Education Minister Stephen Lecce promised a couple weeks ago that every kindergarten class will have a HEPA unit. Anna wants to know if that's in place in Hamilton?

We've ordered close to a thousand HEPA units to be deployed into different classes, and that includes all of our JKand SK classrooms, our full day kindergarten classrooms. We are on track to receive those. I was just asking for confirmation. Have we received the shipment or do we have a date when we're scheduled to receive it? But we had heard from staff earlier this week that we are on track to have those. And to have them deployed in all of our kindergarten classrooms, as well as any classrooms where we don't have mechanical ventilation that brings in air from outside.

From Jennifer: She is asking about kids that aren't vaccinated but are eligible. So, that would be over 12-years-old. Will they be required to do weekly testing? Teachers are required to do weekly testing if they're not vaccinated. But what about kids who are older than 12?

That is a great question. So, the policy that has come out from the ministry is that staff will be requiredall staff, visitors, trustees, any third party vendors that may need to be in our schools, for example, for construction will be required to either disclose their vaccination status and if they're not vaccinated, whether they have an exemption or not, they would have to have regular rapid testing. That does not apply to students at this time. There have been a number of messages to the minister of health to make COVIDvaccines mandatory for students. So, if that did happen, and that is not the case right now, it would be part of the mandatory vaccines that we already report to public health, like measles, mumps andrubella. I'm sure any parent that has a child over six hasexperienced reporting that. To go to school, you either need to report the vaccine status of your child or you would have to report a specific exemption.But we are not there right now. So at this time, there will not be regular rapid testing or, you know, sort of proactive testing for students.

How HWDSB will protect kids under 12

FromManjit:How will kids under 12 be protected if teachers aren't fully vaccinated? Now, of course, that's not a question that just relates to teachers not being vaccinated. There are other school staffs, perhaps parents and othercommunity members who might not be vaccinated. Can you go through your whole plan for protecting students under 12?

I think what's important as a community, as a school board is to build that wall of protection around our students who are not yet eligible to be vaccinated. That includes any student under the age of 12. Although I will note, if your child does turn 12 by the end of this year, they are now eligible for a vaccination. Vaccinations are one layer of protection that we know works against COVID. Teachers can often maintain distance from their students. We have other protocols in place. Masking is one of them. PPE for teachers to wear, including face shields when they can't be distanced from students is another measure. Hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette, cleaning, high contact or high touch surfaces and enhance cleaning in our schools. Cohorting. Those are all measures that worked last year.I don't think it's the question is, is my teacher vaccinated?None of the students under 12 are vaccinated. And that's where we're more likely to have closer contact between students.

Now, I want to add a little extra layer of protection that we didn't have last year. So, vaccination is an important layer of protection. But for our staff that are not vaccinatedthe new policy is that they will have to engage in rapid testing. So, it sounds like at the current state of time, with the cases that we have in the community, that would be about two times in a sevenday period.If cases continue to go up, it might be as many as three times in a week.

From Christine: What's the plan if during a potential fourth wave there's another lockdown?

And that is a fantastic question. I would say the primary goal from all across the province, school boards, the ministry, public health unions, mental health experts we're saying we cannot go into another prolonged online schooling period. That was not in the best interest of our students. So, if we have to go into another lockdown, schools should absolutely be the last thing that must close. And we heard from the chief medical officer of health for Ontario, Dr. Moore, that he didn't anticipate schools having to close. But the province has now said we can look at our school context on a regional basis. That's not exactly what we did last year. The entire province shut down.Schools shut down in areas where they had almost no COVIDcases at all. So this year, we're looking at it more on a regional basis. There may be a short period where a school may have to close or a cohort maybe have to isolate at home. But the ultimate goal is to really minimize that that chance that we have to shut down our whole board and have students learning from home for any length of time.

What about kids with special needs?

From Crystal: My son is in grade 1 and he's had most of his learning done remotely through his short school career. He has ADHD and can't focus on the computer for more than five minutes as atime. Does the HWDSB have plans in place to accommodate kids with special needs like my son, so they can learn in an environment better suited to them?

From Mrs. D. French from Sherwood Secondary School:Due to Ontario governmental policy, schools are being asked to run secondary schools in Quadmesters, which is a very difficult way for students to learn and stay engaged. But, it was deemed a necessary sacrifice, supposedly to limit the number of close contacts of students. Then the government announced further guidelines that allow secondary students to eat lunch (obviously maskless) in a cafeteria with people from the whole school. They will also be allowed to play high-contact sports indoors. It seems these two policies are in direct conflict with each other. How will HWDSB address this disconnect?

That is such a great question and point.I think we are seeing some disconnect between the provincial guidance that came out and the risk factors that they're trying to mitigate through things like quadmestering. Quadmestering means students take two courses at one time. They'll do 150 minutes per course per day. That will be in person. Some students voted for e-learning, but that's like there are options for online learning. Once the courses are finished, I think it's 42days or 46 days. Then they go into their second two courses for the semester. There are some challenges with that model. It's a compressed timeframe to learn material. It's a long time to be on one class. And I know that our educators have to plan purposefully for breaks, for activities to make it as engaging as possible. That was direction from the ministry that we do need to follow. And so then to hear that 'Well, wait a minute. We can just use the cafeteria and open it up?'The good news is at HWDSB, we are not going to have students in the cafeteria to eat lunch together.We are going to start more cautiously, have students eating in their homeroom classroom, or they can go outside to eat and leave the building, and that's considered safer. If people do need to be placed in the cafeteria, it will be in a cohort in distance from other cohorts. We're going to use that in a limited way as needed. But we'll be using classroom spaces for now.