A rise in staff absences at the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB) has prompted its Board of Trustees to schedule a special meeting with local medical officers of health.
In a statement provided to Global News, TVDSB associate director Jeff Pratt says the increase in absences is “a result of staff illness.”
“TVDSB administrators are implementing all available strategies, including staff reallocation, however, there have been hundreds of unfilled jobs on several occasions this week,” Pratt said.
“The health and safety of our staff and students remain our priority and we are doing everything possible to keep schools operating safely for in-person learning.”
Lambeth Public School and Sir Isaac Brock Public School were both temporarily closed on Friday due to “operational concerns related to staffing,” with plans to resume in-person learning on Monday.
While the increase in absences is tied to illness, current restrictions surrounding PCR testing in Ontario don’t allow for TVDSB to accurately track if those illnesses are related to COVID-19.
Craig Smith, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario’s Thames Valley Teacher Local president, believes there is a correlation between the rise in absences and the easing of COVID-19 protocols in schools, which included the lifting of mask mandates.
Smith says reallocating staff to backfill absences can take a toll on teachers.
“We’ve got teachers not only focusing their energies on their own classrooms and program of delivery to support the students in their learning, but we’re now potentially pulled into different teaching environments and our program isn’t delivered,” Smith said.
“The work that we’re there to do is so disrupted in many sites and we, on any given day, have five, 10, 15 kids away and then it might be us.”
The local union president would like to see the TVDSB review its protocols surrounding staff absences and COVID-19, including a potential return to mask mandates.
“If the intention is to keep schools open where kids can attend on a regular basis with the reasonable expectation that they and their teachers are going to be there healthy and safe, then I think it’s a simple thing that needs to be looked at again,” Smith added.
Board of Trustees chair Lori-Ann Pizzolato says she and her fellow trustees learned about the rise in staff absences during a meeting with the TVDSB on Tuesday, a trend she referred to as “not sustainable” in a tweet posted on Thursday.
“Trustee (Corrine) Rahman suggested that we have a special board meeting with public health units to basically inform us of the local context and provide additional guidance,” Pizzolato said.
Pizzolato says the special board meeting will feature updates from the medical officers of health for the Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU) and Southwestern Public Health (SWPH).
“This concerns all trustees, we are concerned. The best place for children, we know, is in schools and this is a challenging time for families and staff, but I know that TVDSB is trying their best to keep schools open,” Pizzolato added.
When it comes to masking, the Board of Trustees’ latest messaging on the matter was to strongly encourage the wearing of masks, a move in line with what the TVDSB and MLHU had put forward when mandates were lifted.
Pizzolato says she wants to hear the upcoming update from MLHU and SWPH before considering what to do next, adding that the challenges facing TVDSB are also occurring at other school boards in the province.
The special board meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. April 12 and will be streamed live to the public.