FUNDS FOR REOPENING

Board reserves accessible

TORONTO Tensions escalated between the Ontario government and teachers’ unions Thursday, as the province rushed to free up money to allow boards to address pandemic safety concerns just weeks before schools are set to reopen.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said school boards will be allowed to access $500 million of their own reserve funds to achieve physical distancing in classrooms. The government will also spend $50 million to update school ventilation systems, and another $18 million to hire principals and support staff to administer online learning.

Lecce stressed the province is making moves to provide more support and flexibility to school boards and keep kids safe.

“We’re taking action,” he said. “One-time, temporary, targeted, timely action to ensure students are safe, and to respond to this generational challenge together.”

Lecce said the funds the government will now allow the boards to access are “rainy day” savings that can help immediately.

“They’re literally sitting there, they’re cash on hand, they can be utilized,” Lecce said, adding four boards that don’t have reserves will receive funding from the government.

The new spending commitments come just weeks after the province unveiled its back-to-school plan, which has angered unions and worried some parents who have been asking the government to reduce class sizes at the elementary level.

The plan will see students in kindergarten through Grade 8 return to school without any reduction in class sizes, though students will spend the day in a single cohort to limit contact with other children.

Most high schoolers will also be in class full time, though students at 24 “designated” boards across the province will take half their courses online in a bid to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The announcement came shortly after Ontario’s four major teachers’ unions released a letter alleging the province’s back-to-school plan violates its own occupational healthand-safety legislation.

The letter states that the province is in the midst of a global pandemic, with no conclusive evidence on how COVID-19 infects children or the rate at which they transmit the disease.

The letter alleges the provincial plan fails to provide adequate health-and-safety protections such as smaller class sizes, minimal measurable standards for ventilation in schools and mandatory masking for younger children.

Asked about the unions’ letter Thursday, Lecce said the government’s plan has been endorsed by the province’s top doctor.

The Canadian Press