How many students and staff are absent at your school?

Toronto’s public school board has launched a new reporting tool aimed at providing greater clarity around absence rates of students and staff as COVID-19 continues to spread within the community.

Dewson Street Junior Public School, near Ossington Avenue and College Street, was the elementary school with the highest percentage of staff absent on Wednesday, with 41 percent or 18 individuals.

Meanwhile, Eastview Public School, near Galloway and Kingston Roads, had the highest percentage of students absent with 33 per cent, or 77 kids.

The Toronto District School Board tracker lists all 587 schools, and the total number of students, and staff at each. Each day, there will be an update with the exact number of students and staff, who are absent – an attendance snapshot captured around noon and uploaded later that afternoon. Percentages of students and staff absent, separately and combined, will also be available.

“We wanted to provide some additional information and clarity when it comes to absence reporting,” said board spokesman Ryan Bird. “This is about us recognizing that there is a change in the information available now in our schools, so we wanted to provide some further clarity on absence reporting, and further explain that while some of these absences are related to COVID-19, some are not. ”

Past information will also be available in a calendar format, allowing users to click on a day and get the absence report data as of this week.

The board’s tracker provides exact numbers and a breakdown between staff and students, while the daily figure posted by the province is a combined percentage of staff and students who are absent.

Last week, the government began publicly providing absences at all publicly funded schools provincewide. Figures are updated each day at 10:30 am, with data from the previous day at 2 pm

While the TDSB data may provide parents with more clarity as to who’s absent at their child’s school, the reason for the absence remains murky. That’s because the data – provided by both the province and the board – includes all reasons for being away, which can include vacation, family matter, religious holiday or a medical appointment.

So even though the data is aimed at providing some insight into the possible impacts COVID may be having on a school community, absences may not even be related to COVID.

Prior to the winter break, the Ministry of Education used to publicly report all confirmed COVID cases in schools, but that practice was stopped. With the highly transmissible Omicron variant spreading rampantly throughout the community, it became difficult for people to access PCR testing due to changes in eligibility, and provincial labs faced a testing backlog.

As students prepared to return to in-person learning on Jan. 17 – after being forced by the province to pivot to remote learning for nearly two weeks because of surging COVID cases – the Ministry of Education directed schools to start reporting student and staff absences. Those figures are available daily on the province’s online tool.

Principals are also supposed to notify local health officials when absenteeism reaches 30 per cent higher than usual and a letter is sent home notifying parents.

Some boards, such as the TDSB, have gone beyond what the province has requested of them, with the goal of providing parents with more information. For instance, when the TDSB and Toronto’s Catholic board are told of a confirmed COVID case they notify those in the affected class. Also, the Toronto Catholic District School Board has maintained its dashboard listing COVID cases in schools.

More to come.