Parents, staff on edge after school closing
Principal says teacher who got COVID-19 exhibited ‘behaviours that maybe weren’t as safe’
Despite thorough cleaning and extensive testing, parents and staff were still feeling “on edge” about returning to a North York school after a teacher who tested positive for COVID-19 was exposed to staff and students, the principal said Tuesday.
St. Charles Catholic School closed on Oct. 5 after staff and students were exposed to an itinerant music teacher who taught multiple classes before testing positive for COVID-19.
Now, after a week, students and teachers got the green light to get back in the classroom Tuesday — but worries remain.
“The school was not operational. There just wasn’t enough personnel left in the school after we determined close contacts with this particular individual,” said principal James Graham told the Star.
Graham said the teacher exhibited “behaviours that maybe weren’t as safe as they could have been.”
On top of that, he mentions that teachers that see multiple classrooms, sometimes in different schools, are even harder to govern.
“I can lock the doors, I can paint lines on the asphalt, I can put arrows all over my school … but the thing that’s most difficult to supervise is the comings and goings of itinerant teachers,” he said.
Since the closure, Graham has been rushing to address the concerns of both staff and students who have been given the green light to return.
“(The staff were) still on edge despite (a deep clean) just because of the risk involved … we had a quick staff meeting this morning to put their minds at ease,” Graham said.
Parents also called in with their anxieties, said Graham. “The big concern is that the class sizes are large, that it’s difficult to cohort the kids.”
The main issue wasn’t following public health regulations at school, as “(they) have all the precautions in place,” Graham said. Where it gets tricky is when students are away from the classroom — intermingling on the school bus, during recess time and more.
“(The exposure was) quite significant because he was a music teacher … There were like a number of classes that he saw,” Ward 5 trustee Maria Rizzo added.
Toronto Public Health set up a one-day assessment centre in the school gymnasium for students and staff to access quicker testing last Thursday. They haven’t reported any new cases yet.
On Tuesday, Ontario reported 72 more COVID-19 cases in schools, bringing the total to 661 schools affected in the last two weeks. Forty-nine more students were infected, the report shows, for a total of 390 student related cases.
There were eight more cases among school staff, totalling 100 in the last 14 days.
The Toronto District School Board updates its information on current COVID-19 cases throughout the day on its website. As of 9:45 a.m. Tuesday, there were 123 TDSB schools with at least one active case — 138 students and 44 staff.
The Toronto Catholic District School Board also updates its information on its website. As of 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, there were 42 schools with a COVID-19 case, with 42 students and nine staff with an active infection.