HEPA units in every Guelph classroom, N95 masks available for teachers, public school board listen – Guelph | The Canadian News

Every public school classroom and learning space in Guelph will have a HEPA filter and every teacher will have an N95 mask when students return to school next week.

That’s what the Upper Grand District School Board’s business operations committee heard during a meeting Tuesday that discussed a back-to-school plan amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have a little over 2,200 stand-alone HEPA units across our system to be in each of our learning spaces,” said director of education Peter Sovran.

Along with N95 masks for each teacher, three-layer reusable masks will also be available to all students when they return to in-person learning on Monday.

“School operations staff over the course of this week will continue to distribute the masks to each school so they are ready by Friday of this week so they are ready for students when they enter our building, presumably on Monday,” the executive said. . education superintendent Brent McDonald.

He announced that the board has also strengthened its mask exemption policy.

Going forward, a certificate signed and stamped by a physician or nurse practitioner will be required to grant a student a mask exemption.

Previously, parents only had to attest that their child had a medical reason for an exemption.

“Starting last Friday, principals began reaching out to the more than 200 students and their families we already had on a waiver to inform them of the requirements to reapply for a mask waiver,” McDonald said.

Since public health no longer reports the number of COVID cases in schools, the board is launching a pilot project to provide some general data.

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For each school, Upper Grand will post a percentage of absences each day compared to the average day.

“It is an approximation. Is a pilot [project]. We don’t actually know whether or not this will meet the anticipated need and we also don’t know if the Ministry of Education will provide additional guidance on an aid proxy like this,” Sovran said.

Sovran added that parents are not required to inform the school if their child is absent due to COVID-19, so unless otherwise stated, the school will assume the absence is due to illness.

On Wednesday, the province announced that schools will now have to report daily data on staff absences to local public health units to monitor disruptions in schools now that the province has limited access to testing.

Officials say public health will notify families if 30 percent of school is absent, though they noted it will not be confirmed if all absences are due to COVID-19.

— with archives from The Canadian Press