School boards look for best use of COVID funding

As the number of Ottawa schools with COVID-19 cases climbs, Ottawa boards are contemplating how to spend the extra cash provided by the province to make schools safer.

The province has awarded $35 million in federal COVID-19 grants to schools in the hotspots of Ottawa, Toronto, Peel and York — money that Education Minister Stephen Lecce has said can be used to increase physical distancing by hiring more educators and improving remote learning for children who have opted to study at home.

The four Ottawa school boards received a total of $6 million.

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has not determined how it will spend its share of $2.8 million, but some will probably be used for Chromebooks, said chair Lynn Scott.

As more students are in self-isolation at home — either because they have been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19 or because they have symptoms themselves — the demand for devices has increased, she said.

The students in isolation can't always take a Chromebook from school home with them, because the technology is needed at school, she said.

The Ministry of Education expects that students who are at home in self-isolation for more than three days will receive remote learning from home, she said.

The board is still trying to figure out how that can be accomplished.

Some of the extra money might also go toward staff, said Scott.

The Ottawa Catholic School Board plans to use its $1.74 million to hire about 17 educators for its virtual schools, said spokesperson Sharlene Hunter.

The funding will allow the board to allow more students to switch to virtual schools without necessarily causing an increase in class sizes at bricks-and-mortar schools, she said.

Across the province, some in-person elementary classes have been consolidated as enrolment shrinks at bricks-and-mortar schools because students are opting for virtual schooling at home.

At the Ottawa Catholic board, the ability to hire more teachers for virtual schools will help administrators avoid consolidating in-person classes and making them larger, said Hunter.

Ottawa boards are still in the process of reorganizing classes for elementary students. That happens every September to adjust for enrolment changes, but the process is both later and more extensive this year because of changes to schools caused by COVID-19.

For example, parents at Francojeunesse elementary school have been warned that classes will be reorganized in the next few days.

Parents are worried that some classes will be made larger, said parent Jana Trembinski. Students continue to migrate to the virtual schools because parents are worried about safety, she said. Her older son is in Grade 6 with a class of 26 kids; her younger son's Grade 3 class has 16 students.

Trembinski said it's unacceptable that school boards would make classes larger “at this time of rising COVID cases and decrees from all levels of government to stay inside and keep away from everybody.”

The Francojeunesse principal, in a letter to parents on Oct. 8, said the board is following the class size ratios set by the Ontario Ministry of Education, which funds schools.

At the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, staff are still working through waiting lists of children who want to switch between in-person and virtual classes, said Scott. Classroom reorganizations should be complete in the next week or so, she said. That board is keeping in-person elementary classes lower by boosting the size of classes at the virtual schools.

Ottawa's French public board received $563,000 in extra grants. It welcomes the money but is still deciding how it will be spent, said a spokesperson for the board. The Ottawa French Catholic board received $943,000, but has not responded to a query about how the money will be spent.

Meanwhile, 99 Ottawa schools reported 187 active cases of people with COVID-19 as of Thursday. That represents 31 per cent of all schools in the four boards. An additional 31 schools have had people test positive for COVID-19 this fall, but those cases have been resolved.

While most schools have reported only one person with COVID-19 some have multiple people who have tested positive.

École secondaire catholique Franco-Cité now has the most cases of COVID-19 of any school in the city. The school on Smyth Road has 12 people with active cases that have caused 21 classes to be sent into self-isolation, according to the Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est website. Another three cases among people at the school have been resolved.

Notre-Dame High School has seven students with COVID-19, causing the closure of 13 classes.

Horizon-Jeunesse elementary school was ordered closed this week by Ottawa Public Health after an outbreak was declared, which signals there was probably transmission of the virus within the school. There are six people with active cases of COVID-19 at the school and another two people whose cases have been resolved, according to the board website.

Scott said staff are working “flat out” to make schools as safe as they can, but the most important factor in ensuring schools stay open is reducing the spread of COVID-19 in the community.

“The sooner we can get the transmission of COVID under control in the community the safer our kids will be and the easier it will be to run our schools.”