Fear of catching virus low among students, TDSB survey finds

Meanwhile, only 20% of staff report feeling safe, 70% reporting burnout

The majority of Toronto public school students aren’t worried about catching COVID-19 in the classroom. But new survey results reveal this may be at the expense of staff’s well-being.

A survey of Toronto District School Board (TDSB) students, staff and parents released Wednesday, shows that 81 per cent of students say they feel protected from contracting COVID-19 in the classroom due to health and safety measures in place, and 90 per cent of students feel supported by their teacher.

That confidence, however, shrinks dramatically among Toronto public school staff — only 20 per cent say they feel safe at work from contracting COVID-19, and only 30 per cent say they’re satisfied with safety procedures put in place to protect their health and the board’s communication on these policies.

A majority of staff respondents — 70 per cent — admit to feeling burnt out, and less than 30 per cent say they are able to predict the amount of work they must do on any given day. Many expressed “problems at work have kept them up at night, and that they have little energy left at the end of the day.”

More than 6,000 staff members responded to the survey in December, the TDSB said. The board employs 42,000 people in total, according to its website. Students from Grades 6 to 12 were surveyed in January, with 36,000 students accessing the survey across those grades. There are about 247,000 students in total in the TDSB.

Some 96,500 parents completed the survey as well. The majority, 89 per cent, say they feel their child is protected from catching COVID-19 at school.

Ryan Bird, spokesperson for the TDSB, said the results show that while staff are “integral to providing those supports to students, which are going over well,” teachers and staff themselves are reporting high levels of burnout and stress.

“You have an overwhelming majority of students and parents feeling that students are protected from getting COVID-19 because of health and safety precautions in place at the school, and 70 per cent of families report coping well during this pandemic,” Bird said.

“At the same time, I think much of that success is thanks to the commitment of our staff, but it’s having an impact on our staff.”

In response to the survey results, Bird said the TDSB will be launching a newsletter for staff that will communicate the board’s decision-making process on how and why COVID-19 safety precautions are implemented.

But with respect to mental health and burnout, Bird said the board is still determining what next steps it should take to address those issues.

He pointed to existing supports, such as employee assistance programs.

Other resources available on the TDSB website include wellness modules and links to Wellness Canada, which offers free counselling, and Anxiety Canada, which offers group counselling for a fee.

“Students and staff are struggling with mental health — that feeling of being burnt out is very real, and we’re trying to acknowledge that,” Bird said. “Now that we have this information, how can we better support them?”

Jennifer Brown, president of Elementary Teachers of Toronto, said immediate steps can be taken to help alleviate some of the stress on teachers and staff.

“Now that they have this information, they need to address it,” Brown said of the TDSB, the largest school board in the country.

She said the TDSB can immediately decrease the workload of teachers and offer some time throughout the day for teachers and staff to participate in wellness activities and for their own mental health and well-being, instead of directing them to yet “another website” to read something, Brown said.

“If it really is a priority, then fund it as such,” she said.

As for overall results of the survey, Brown said they are a testament to “how much the teachers do for the students, so that they feel safe, so that there is some standard of normalcy at such a time of chaos and despair.”

Teachers, Brown added, continue to feel heightened levels of anxiety due to class sizes they feel are too large in comparison to general limits on gathering in the city of Toronto, and due to public health messaging that is constantly changing.

Other notable survey results include 70 per cent of teachers revealing they don’t have adequate tools, resources or training to do their jobs safely, and 80 per cent of staff reporting they’ve taken on additional cleaning responsibilities in the classroom, especially elementary teachers.

A number of safety measures have been implemented in schools to protect staff and students from COVID-19, including wearing masks, frequent hand washing and use of hand sanitizer, and consistent cleaning of surfaces and shared spaces.

“The workload hasn’t changed,” Brown said. “It has increased on top of the pandemic, on top of the lack of resources.”