We must get a handle on virus risk from supply teachers

It wasn’t too long ago that we were all agonizing over the deaths of hundreds of people in long-term care homes in Ontario and across the country. One of the reasons COVID -19 spread so fast was because of the constant movement of personal support workers (PSWs) from one home to another. As they did so, the caregivers infected many people. By the time action was taken to limit the migration, the damage was done.

Now as schools reopen, the Ontario government and school boards should be careful not to repeat the mistakes that were made in long-term care. The issue is how to deal with occasional teachers, often called supply or substitute teachers, who work not just in multiple classrooms and schools in the elementary and secondary systems, but across multiple boards. Their work life is not unlike that of personal support workers. But so far, the provincial government and school boards don’t seem to have a handle on the issue. Education unions worry that as the occasional teachers move around, as they must, they could become inadvertent carriers, compromising not only their safety, but potentially, that of other people they come into contact with. The government and school boards must act on these concerns.

“It is an issue that we take with enormous seriousness, but I don’t think the government is taking it seriously,” says Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF).

“Occasional teachers have to move around to make a living and I am worried that they will be forced to go to multiple places and be at risk of picking up the virus and spreading it,” says Kelly Granum, president of the occasional teachers’ unit of OSSTF’s Ottawa local, District 25. “We don’t want to be known as the people who are infecting schools.”

In Ottawa, there are about 800 supply teachers working almost daily in secondary schools in the public system, with another 1,500 in elementary schools. Hundreds more work in the other boards. And with more teachers needing to be hired for the school year, the risk increases, says Granum, an occasional teacher since 2012.

Occasional teachers make a living by cobbling together teaching assignments from various sources across the education system. They usually fill in for teachers on sick and maternity leave or those who are absent for any number of reasons.

On any given day, says Granum, an occasional teacher can work in multiple classrooms in elementary or high school. If occasional teachers are free to work anywhere, Granum says she, for instance, could on one day work in an elementary school in a public board and easily be part of three cohorts. The next day, she could be in an elementary or secondary school in the Catholic or French boards, doing the same thing. In any given week, an occasional teacher could cycle through hundreds of students, and in a pandemic that could spell trouble.

Children, of course, are believed not to be as susceptible to the virus as seniors, and what’s more, school boards have stringent infection controls that long-term homes never had.

Still, with the science on children’s capacity to transmit COVID-19 unsettled, educators want to err on the side of caution. They want limits on where occasional teachers can work to lessen the potential for transmission. The unions want school boards to come up with a plan that restricts movement across boards. It’s not an unreasonable request.

“We really would like them to designate occasional teachers for each school, so they aren’t going from school to school,” Granum says.

David Wildman, president of the Ottawa occasional teachers’ unit of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, acknowledges that government delay in formulating a clear back-to-school plan has affected timely decision-making by the boards.

The boards need to know how big the cohorts will be before finalizing decisions, but time is running out.

“Our members are asking: ‘Am I going to bring the virus to my family?’” Wildman says.

The alarm has been sounded, and the government and school boards must respond with decisive action.

Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa writer.