‘A different reality’
Boards’ limits on sports should be temporary, education minister says
With hundreds of thousands of children heading back to class today, the Star talks to Education Minister Stephen Lecce about what to expect this school year and what he won’t apologize for,
Education Minister Stephen Lecce makes no apologies for keeping Ontario schools closed for months longer than those in any other province — it was the right decision at the time, he says.
But now, as the fourth wave continues to hit the province, he’s committed to keeping them open. He calls it a cautious approach, but back to normal is his goal — and he wants to achieve it as quickly as possible.
“It’s a different reality this September than last,” Lecce told the Star in an exclusive interview as most of Ontario’s two million students return to class this week, after experiencing a year and a half of more shutdowns than those in any other province because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Wednesday, getting back to normal took another hit. In a surprise move on the eve of the return to class of Toronto public and Catholic school students, Toronto Public Health told boards to pause all extracurricular sports and clubs, as well as field trips, for at least September.
Lecce emphasized to the Star that any delay in sports or clubs should be temporary.
With vaccinations widely available for staff and students — about three-quarters of those 12 to 17 have already gotten a shot — there are added measures of daily screening, mandatory masking starting in Grade 1, ventilation upgrades and some 70,000 HEPA units in classrooms, including every kindergarten classroom.
Along with twice-weekly testing of unvaccinated staff, “that’s another layer of protection we didn’t have a year ago,” he said.
It’s important to have “a more normal school year for the kids” that includes extracurriculars, Lecce said.
In Toronto, however, students will have to keep waiting for that kind of normal.
It remains unclear if the sports typically offered up first — football, field hockey, volleyball and cross-country — will be rescheduled.
“How am I allowed to go and practise with my soccer team (in the community) — how is that allowed to happen but I can’t go play sports at my school?” said 16-year-old Danny Assimakopoulos, who was looking forward to being on the volleyball team in his final year of high school at Scarborough’s Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute.
Pre-pandemic, volleyball practice would typically start on the second day of school, and Assimakopoulos said he is frustrated for such a big change to be made at the last minute.
“In the lockdowns before, when we had 4,000 cases a day, I was disappointed that I couldn’t do sports, but I understood it” because hospitals were overloaded, he said.
But now, cases are much lower “and to me it seems unnecessary to cancel (extracurriculars) … the vaccine was marketed to us as a solution … and to take away the volleyball season? I really don’t think they get it, how much it means to students.
“This is completely on Toronto Public Health. They put an absolute bullet in the plans of many kids.”
Dr. Kieran Moore, the province’s chief medical officer of health, has okayed sports to resume, even high contact, indoor sports such as hockey and basketball.
“We want (students) to enjoy physical education, clubs and extracurriculars,” Lecce also said. “When a local public health unit, based on local circumstances, provides advice to a school board, I can appreciate why they are adopting the advice in the interest of being cautious, to minimize any potential risk to the schools.”
However, he added, “having said that, I want these measures to be as temporary as possible.
Once it is safe to get these programs back on track, every child deserves to have extracurriculars … that’s so important to the education system in Ontario. It’s not just about the curriculum — it’s about the learning that takes place in and outside of the classroom.”
Lecce said he will “always defer to medical experts to make local decisions … but I do hope, and it is my clear, unambiguous position that those activities get back on track as soon as it is safe to do so.”
The Ottawa-Carleton public board has paused the return of after-school activities for the start of the school year — activities that teachers provide voluntarily.
The York Region District School Board is expected to announce its plans for extracurriculars on Thursday, amid worries from volleyball and football coaches that the very sports the province has given the go-ahead to could face limits.
Regardless of any limits imposed, because students had little to no access to extracurriculars last year, “it’s still a net improvement,” Lecce added. “We are starting cautious in September with the intent, over time, when it is safe to lift restrictions — which can include cohorting … and masking as well — when we get there.”
During the pandemic, Lecce himself has faced an unusual hardship for an education minister — becoming the target of anti-mask and anti-lockdown protesters, who have been demonstrating almost daily at his home and trying to track his every move.
Recently, a car followed him as he left his home and tried to box him in as he was driving.
Cars continue to circle his neighbourhood and park in front of his home every day, with protesters volunteering online to take “shifts” surveilling his place and then night shifts promising “disruption.”
Of late, Lecce has been spotted with an OPP security detail.
He visited a French school in Etobicoke school on Wednesday as students returned for their second day of classes.
Kids in the Toronto District School Board, the country’s largest, head back Thursday morning.
The Toronto board has gone beyond provincial recommendations by requiring masks for all students, even those in kindergarten and keeping elementary schoolchildren with their cohorts at lunch and recess.
But some parents remain worried “that our classrooms are not as small as they need to be, they are worried about ventilation systems, they are worried about the fact that we need to ensure all of our education staff are vaccinated,” said New Democrat MPP Jill Andrew (Toronto—St. Paul’s).
The province has provided $1.6 billion in COVID-19 spending, as well as $600 million for ventilation upgrades, and Lecce said Ontario’s protocols are more stringent than most other provinces and follow the recommendations of pediatric experts.