School boards serving the Peterborough region are reporting student and staff absence rates well above average since schools reopened earlier this month amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of Tuesday, the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board said the majority of its 89 schools averaged around 24 per cent absences among students and staff.
The Peterborough Victoria Northumberland Clarington Catholic District School Board has averaged around 18.5 per cent student/staff absent at its 47 schools.
According to daily provincial data, as of Wednesday morning, 78 of the KPRDSB’s 89 public schools have submitted data, showing absence rates ranging between five per cent up to 86.3 per cent at Plainville Public School in Gores Landing.
For the Catholic school board, 38 of its schools have absence data provided, ranging from 12 per cent to a high of 30.8 per cent at St. Mary Catholic Elementary School in Lindsay.
Officials at both school boards told Global News Peterborough on average during January, the absence rate is five per cent.
However, the provincial data does not specify the number of students or staff absent or what contributes to the absences — whether due to COVID-19, being identified as a close contact of a case, general illness or a decision to shift to online learning.
Ontario schools only need to report absences to public health once they rise above 30 per cent, at which point discussions between the region’s health unit and the school board will ensue to discuss possible closure or further safety protocols. So far this month, neither Peterborough Public Health nor the Haliburton, Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit has ordered a school closed.
For parents such as Laura Coles, whose son is in kindergarten, it creates a lot of uncertainty, especially with the stoppage in COVID-19 case reporting at schools.
“We’re in no man’s land right now,” she said. “It’s fend for yourself.”
Coles said her child attended one day of class last week.
“He had actually been a close contact before school went back so we decided to keep him home for a little while,” said Coles. “He went back on Friday for the first day and then on Sunday we got the notification that there was a self-reported case in his class.”
Coles says she was fortunate to hear from her child’s principal when it comes to student contact tracing and reporting, but other parents haven’t been so lucky.
Parent Pat Trudeau shares that sentiment
“The reporting that was happening before things changed provincially was important,” he said. “It gave parents and it gave teachers the opportunity to make an educated judgement of risk. Without those numbers you can’t do that — you’re flying blind.”
Trudeau and Coles noted a number of parents are relying on self-reporting COVID-19 case sites on social media, including on by Twitter user @COVID19Ptbo, which encourages reporting COVID-19 cases in Peterborough city and county schools and child-care centres
“We’re using every tool we can to find out what’s going on,” said Coles.
However, both parents say they want to see a return of COVID-19 cases being reported publicly by health officials.
“The fact that we’re relying on a grassroots social media account to provide us with any sort of window into reality is alarming,” said Trudeau.
— with files from Sam Houpt/Global News Peterborough
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