Schools in Simcoe County and Muskoka District are slowly beginning to see the delivery of N95 masks and additional HEPA filters, but some education officials don’t believe it will be enough to get staff and students back to school by Jan. 17.
Simcoe County District School Board spokesperson Sarah Kekewich told BarrieToday the public board is anticipating a shipment of HEPA filter units from the ministry to arrive soon. Units will be prioritized for special-education classrooms where there may be students participating in in-person learning according to ministry directive.
The public board received a shipment of non-fitted N95 masks from the ministry this week and have distributed those to schools for staff use, Kekewich added.
Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board spokesperson Pauline Stevenson said the Catholic board is set to receive approximately 40,000 N95 masks, which she hopes to see by the end of the week.
“They are getting delivered directly to the schools, so it will take a bit to make sure everyone’s got their proper allocations, but it’s gone fairly smoothly I think," Stevenson said.
The local Catholic board has also been allotted 35 HEPA filters, which Stevenson also anticipates delivery of soon. However, none had arrived as of Thursday.
Stevenson admitted the allotment is not nearly enough to cover all of the schools in the region.
“We have 50 schools… and the HEPA filters are only for one particular location, and schools are typically fairly large so we will have to prioritize the location,” she said.
The Catholic board has been purchasing and installing the filters in different locations for the last two years, Stevenson said, so certain high-priority areas — such as kindergarten classrooms, special-needs classrooms, some libraries and music rooms — already have them.
“We will just keep plugging away," Stevenson said.
Kent MacDonald, the president of the local Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA), said even if schools do reopen Jan. 17, he’s certain it will come with much anxiety for both educators and families — even if all provincial government’s promises are fulfilled.
“It doesn’t matter at this point. We are always going to have some anxiety,” he said. “Going back, there are a number of things we’ve been asking for. The masks are supposed to be coming, which is good and is something we’ve been advocating for quite a while.”
The additional HEPA filters are a start, but there isn’t one for every class, said MacDonald, which is why he wonders if more should be done — including the possibility of either making booster shots mandatory or prioritizing them for education workers and providing all students with medical-grade masks.
“At this point, I think it’s something a lot of people have gone and done themselves,” MacDonald said. “Do we need to mandate vaccination (so) that people need to be vaccinated to either work or be in the school? It’s really tricky with elementary students. … I don’t think anyone has gone there… (and) it puts a lot of pressure on families.
“Our job is to teach and personally that is a really grey area… but there has to be some awareness," he added, noting smaller class sizes would also be beneficial.
Jen Hare, Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) bargaining unit president for Simcoe County, told BarrieToday the public board received 66 HEPA filters, but with 85 elementary schools and 17 high schools, it won’t be enough to outfit all the schools, let alone every classroom.
“Obviously, it’s not close to enough, but what the board did do, and we are grateful for, is they prioritized those filters to go into our special-needs classrooms," she said. "The problem with that is there are about 77 (of those classrooms) and 66 filters, and they’re not set to arrive until the end of next week.”
Hare said she heard masks were delivered to schools earlier Thursday, however was unsure if they were the ministry purchased masks or additional masks purchased by the board. Of concern, however, is that the masks are apparently all one size and may not properly fit all educators.
That said, educators have permission from the board to wear N95 masks they have purchased themselves, she added.
“The problem with that is they’re very expensive and they’re very hard to find right now,” Hare said. “The blessing is people can wear their own, but very few have been able to access them.”
Hare said any additional layers of protection they can offer staff to keep them safe should be considered, including the possibility of accepting donated masks from the community.
“If the community wants to provide an additional layer of protection that the government has continued to struggle to provide for us, I don’t see why those would not be considered," she said.
