TORONTO – One day after the first report of absence rates in Ontario schools and no longer of Covid infections, it is groping in the dark. The effectiveness of this new and somewhat controversial strategy decided by the province with the return of students to the classrooms, is questioned or rather rejected on all fronts. 

Data in Ontario’s new absence reporting system – which started on Monday and replaces the Covid-19 dashboard used by families to find information about cases in their children’s school – has raised new questions about the usefulness of the new online tool. The only clear fact is that there are currently 11 schools closed.

According to the data, last Friday, one in five pupils was absent while 16 schools were closed in the province. In Toronto, a public high school indicated that 71% of students and teachers were not in the classroom: a number of teenagers were doing an internship and were mistakenly marked as absent. And a Catholic elementary school in Toronto reported a rate of absences of children and staff of more than 84%, a figure that turned out to be wrong.

In the rates reported now by the schools are therefore also included absences not due to Covid: children on vacation or temporarily online, cooled down and more. The numbers, in essence, do not reflect reality. The Ontario Public School Boards’ Association is urging the Ministry of Education to find a way to give parents clearer information.

Now, under the province’s new rules, when schools reach an overall absence rate of 30%, families will be notified and public health will be involved. “Clearly the ministry has some work to do to clean up the data – said Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association – we also hope to be able to discuss this issue with ministry officials because if the real numbers of Covid cases are not given no service is done to people who wish to have a clear picture of what is happening”.

Confusion reigns supreme now that after restricting the policy on rapid testing, the province no longer makes public information on infections in its schools. In the meantime, some school boards, including the Catholic of Toronto, the public of Ottawa-Carleton and the public of Durham, have decided not to follow the government guidelines and to publicly report the cases of Covid-19 of which they become aware.

Even in this way, however, the exact extent of the infections is not given as parents are no longer obliged to communicate to the schools attended by their children if they are infected with the virus. The numbers, therefore, as can be easily deduced, are partial. It is unlikely that in all the schools of the Toronto Catholic District School Board the infections in the last twenty-four hours, as reported by the website, have been only 84.

On Monday, Education Minister Stephen Lecce said that now “parents can have daily access to the absenteeism rates of students and staff in their children’s school”. But NDP MPP Marit Stiles called this tracking “ridiculously vague and of little use.” “This information leaves parents across Ontario with so many questions that remain unanswered,” Stiles said.