Thread by @globeandmail

It's almost Labor Day weekend, which means we're approaching the back to school season – the third school year of the pandemic.

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For 18 months now, students and their parents have had to deal with unpredictable school disruptions and a lot of anxiety around contracting COVID-19.

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Most students were forced into remote learning for weeks at a time. Ontario kids spent more than half of the 2020-2021 academic year out of the classrooms. Most kids and parents managed the isolation, the screen time, the tech issues. But very few thrived.
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Now, with over 65% Canadians fully vaccinated, most students are returning to in-person learning. But there is still a tangled web of restrictions for parents to sort out and the looming threat of the #DeltaVariant that could send kids home, again.

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🔊 Today on #TheDecibel, education reporter @calphonso discusses how schools are gearing up to keep kids stay and facilitate as normal of a return to school this fall as possible.

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🔊 @calphonso: “We’re just days away from school starting tomorrow, and everything is still being figured out.”

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🔊 @calphonso: “We don't know what a vaccine policy would look like in a school board. We don't know that a staff member who is unvaccinated, how frequently they would be need to be tested and how that testing would work.”

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🔊 @calphonso: “All of this is still up in the air. Hopefully we get some answers soon because I know a lot of families are waiting for that.”

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🔊 @calphonso: “This is the third school year of COVID-19. Many expect it will be another very disruptive school year for kids. I think parents are nervous about the disruptions. But the data is showing that parents are sending their kids to school.”

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