The Upper Grand District School Board board of trustees is preparing to send letters to members of the provincial government to ensure the safety of staff and students is met, with the school board trustees pleading for COVID-19 rapid antigen tests for staff and students.
The letters are expected to be sent out later today or tomorrow, and will be addressed to Stephen Lecce, Ontario’s Minister of Education and Christine Elliott, the Deputy Premier of Ontario and Minister of Health, as well as released publicly on social media.
Linda Busuttil, Upper Grand District School Board chairperson, said the letters will focus on three asks which include getting COVID-19 as a list of designated diseases into the Schools Pupils Act, getting rapid antigen tests for schools and thirdly is the development of a test to stay or return to school and work asymptomatic screening process.
“Parents and the community need to know that we’ve been advocating,” said Busuttil. Advocating for a long time for lots of things.”
Busuttil said during a meeting held earlier this week, an update from staff brought forward directives in a presentation that outlined the needs for rapid antigen testing, setting the stage for the next move of drafting and sending letters.
Given the cost of roughly $10 per rapid antigen test, Busuttil estimates the weekly cost would run the school board $750,000.
“We don’t have the budget for that, but at the same time we want our kids back and our staff back and we want a safe learning environment. So, what we’re asking is for these rapid antigen tests to be procured centrally and given to us. We’re looking at doing testing maybe all the way up to the beginning of March Break, and that would be $3 to $4 million dollars and that isn’t something we have a budget for. We have no funding for this at all.”
While the letters have been drafted, Busuttil said she was holding off on sending them as the Ministry of Health was holding a media briefing on Thursday afternoon with regards to rapid testing in Ontario.
The update comes a day after the federal government said it will distribute 140 million rapid tests across the country.
“This is also beneficial to our businesses, having the parents working and so on. So it’s not just education, it is also an economic benefit,” said Busuttil.
Students are currently slated to return to the classroom on Jan. 17.
