[GTranslate]Ontario should vaccinate education workers against Covid-19 during the April holiday week rather than wait for the school to end this summer. Asking for this, in a letter sent Thursday to Education Minister Stephen Lecce, is the Ontario Public School Board Association (OPSBA) that teachers should be vaccinated as soon as possible in phase 2 of the province’s roadmap in order to be able to continue to let children attend schools. “Vaccinating education workers would ensure we are supporting their health, safety and well-being, while also minimizing absences from the workplace – OPSBA President Cathy Abraham wrote in the letter – This, in turn, helps keep students in the classroom.”. And the March Break, which this year has been postponed to April 12 in an attempt to prevent families from travelling and potentially spread more contagious variants of Covid-19, offers an excellent opportunity to vaccinate as many teachers, school assistants and other school staff as possible”.

The OPBSA’s request to the government, Abraham pointed out, is still awaiting a response.

At present, teachers should be vaccinated towards the end of phase 2 of the vaccination campaign in the province, which is not scheduled until the summer after the end of the school year. “It would make a lot more sense for this to happen sooner,” Abraham said, “it would be useful for all the people involved if we could move them forward in the vaccination timeline.”

Vaccinations are welcome, Harvey Bischof said, but without bypassing the people most at risk. The president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), said members of his union are eager to get vaccinated but don’t want to get past the most vulnerable to Covid-19. 

Bischof believes, however, that once the elderly and frontline health workers are vaccinated, the next in line, for many reasons, should be up to teachers. “Educators work in environments that are not allowable in most other public places in the province – he said – They often work in classes that are crowded, where there isn’t room for physical distancing, sometimes with students with special needs who aren’t able to wear masks and because children are too young to be vaccinated, administering the vaccine to teachers could help stop chain infections.”

Like Abraham, Bishof is convinced that immunizing teachers would help keep schools open. “Boards in one hot spot have had to shutter several schools to in-person learning because teachers were exposed to COVID-19 and they had to observe quarantine,” he said.

Twelve Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board schools have closed since Friday, as have six schools on the Peel District School Board.

In schools in the province’s school boards, the virus continues to spread. According to the latest government data, there are 167 new cases, of which 138 are students and 29 teachers: the total number of infections has risen to 12,017. There are 1,053 schools where there are active outbreaks of the virus, 44 schools closed.

Meanwhile, the news that the Ford government would be willing to continue with online learning even after the end of the pandemic has sparked numerous controversies from the teachers’ unions: Minister Lecce has stated that the decision on this, will be communicated in the coming weeks.