Some opening, some not: It's a mishmash at rural schools outside Ottawa

Administrators at the Upper Canada District School Board offered parents a letter, a school-by-school chart and a coloured map to help them figure out if and when their children can head back to in-person classes.

Ontario's Education Ministry has announced that elementary and secondary students in seven largely rural regions will be allowed to end remote learning at home and go back to school on Monday.

Some schools in rural areas surrounding Ottawa will reopen, while others will remain closed, even within the same school board.

That's because the reopening list is based on public health unit regions, and some school boards straddle two or more of them.

The Upper Canada board, for instance, covers a large rural area outside of Ottawa that includes the towns of Cornwall, Brockville, Carleton Place and Almonte. It's under the jurisdiction of two health units.

Students attending schools in areas covered by the Eastern Ontario Health Unit must continue learning at home, while those in the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit can return to schools on Monday.

That means, for instance, that South Edwardsburg Public School in Johnstown will be open Monday, but 18 kilometres further along the Saint Lawrence River, Iroquois Public School will be closed.

The situation is further complicated at the Upper Canada board because high schools in the areas allowed to open for classes on Jan. 25 will instead remain closed until Feb. 2 to allow students to finish their semester without disruption or a change in class cohorts.

The boundaries must be drawn somewhere, of course. It makes sense to use public health units because local medical officers of health can issue health-related orders in their jurisdictions in addition to any rules imposed by the province.

The medical officer of health in Windsor-Essex, for example, ordered all schools closed in that district for a week before the Christmas break because COVID-19 cases were rising rapidly.

It creates complications for the school boards, though, and for parents.

For example, children who live in a no-schools-open health unit area but attend school in an area where schools are open can go back to class, the Upper Canada District School Board explained in the letter.

It's a similar situation at the two French-language boards with schools in Ottawa and surrounding rural areas and at the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario. Some schools may open on Monday, while others will remain closed. School board websites will post that information.

The province did not explain how it chose the seven regions that can reopen schools, other than saying the decision was made on the basis of advice from the province's chief medical officer of health.

But all seven regions have relatively low rates of COVID -19, with fewer than 40 cases a week per 100,000 population, notes Ryan Imgrund, a high school teacher and biostatistician who has acted as a consultant for Ottawa Public Health.

He posts daily statistical updates on Twitter.

Renfrew County was on the list of seven health unit regions where schools can reopen, so students at the Renfrew County District School Board can go back to in-person class Monday, the board said on its website.

Schools in northern Ontario opened last week.