With back to school and students returning to classrooms, the growing concern for parents about safety measures in schools grows steadily. This brings up the question of what it is, in fact, that schools in Ontario are doing in order to maintain safety measures and precautions to ensure maximum safety for children.
First and foremost, before your children go back to school, it should be the parents’ duty to inform the children of what safety measures they should be taking themselves and essentially, the dos and don’ts. Going back to school this Fall will not be the same as previous years – the whole game has changed in the sense where children should be sanitizing and washing their hands, keeping their hands to themselves, and minimizing any physical contact whenever they can. Aside from parents informing their children about safety measures; parents should also be asking the school board about any concerns or questions they have regarding back to school precautions. In specific, what will the boards be doing to maintain health and safety measures in their schools?
CTV News’ Safety Professional reported that there should be set schedules of cleaning and disinfecting whether it be 1-3 times a day, or even after every class. There are high-touch areas such as doorknobs and railings which should be given more attention and disinfected twice a day, at the very least. It is also important to keep ventilation systems in mind; and how much ventilation a school or classroom has and changing those filters.
In the worst-case scenario, parents should know there could be outbreaks in schools and how those schools propose to notify students and parents. Most restaurants and patios open now use the method of taking down customer names and numbers on the day they visited and contacting them if there is a case. However, since this method would be inefficient considering the number of students, schools will be implementing notification systems.
It is crucial to stay on top of information that parents receive from their school board, the government of Ontario, and the government of Canada. It is even more imperative that we pay close attention to the public health in our province so we can be up to date with the pandemic and growing cases (if any), as they vary from province to province.
If you are wondering what schools are doing in order to maintain safety with back to school, click here!
