Some parents say students in Ontario received poorly fitted masks when they returned to schools | The Canadian News

TORONTO – Some parents in Ontario are concerned about the three-layer cloth masks their children received at schools this week, saying the masks are too large and not protective enough against the highly contagious Omicron variant.

The provincial government has said it will provide school staff with N95 masks and students with three-layer cloth masks as personal learning resumes this week.

A spokesman said the province was sending a mix of sizes to plates, which had the flexibility to place different orders for the sizes their students needed. A few boards said the masks they received were too large for some young children and said they were working to address the problem.

In Guelph, Ont., Nathan Poulton said his two children – four and six years old – each received one three-layer cloth mask from the school, but the mask did not fit well with his younger son’s face.

“It fits one child and? just kind of drops off the other child’s face, ”he said. “It is adjustable, but the size difference between a four-year-old and a six-year-old’s faces is quite large.”

Poulton said he recently bought child-size N95 masks for his children and plans to give them to them instead as they are better fit and higher grade masks.

The Upper Grand District School Board in Guelph said the board “heard some remarks that the masks were too big for some students.”

Spokeswoman Heather Loney said school administrators were reminded “to ensure the fit of the cloth masks and to do everything possible to ensure that students receive an appropriate size mask when it is handed out.”

The council said it received the masks from the Ministry of Education based on the enrollment numbers – children in the nursery received “child” masks, those in grades 1 to 6 received “youth” masks, while students in grade 7 and 8 received “adult”. masks. The council also purchased additional student masks to ensure there are ‘readily available and additional size options’, Loney said.

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The Durham District School Board also said it had noted that some masks sent from the province were “too big for most students” and said they had requested smaller masks.

In the Toronto area, Jenna Leon said her seven-year-old daughter received one mask this week that was “too big” and called its quality “mediocre.”

“The upper part is too big to go up in her nose. The width is too loose and slack. The straps for the ears do nothing to pull the mask tight, ”she said.

Leon said her daughter will wear medical masks that the family bought until N95 masks she ordered arrive at their home.

“It’s so hard to understand how it’s layers of robust protection for my child at school,” she said of the mask her daughter received at a school in the Halton Catholic District School Board.

The Halton board did not respond to a request for comment.

Kristen Fenlon, whose two children attend a school in the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board, said the masks her children received were also far too large.

“I would say they are probably an extra large size … they did not even fit me,” she said, adding that her children would wear the higher grade medical masks she had purchased.

The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board said they had not received any complaints from parents and “had no input on the sizes or quantities” of masks sent by the province.

In a statement, a spokesman for Education Minister Stephen Lecce said the government was sending “proactive allocations to boards” with a mix of sizes.

Caitlin Clark said when boards place orders for the masks, “they have the flexibility to order any volume in whatever size they want and need for their student populations.”

“With even more shipments of different sizes on the way, we encourage boards to work with students to ensure they receive the right size option,” she said.

Clark noted that Ontario follows the expert advice of the Chief Medical Officer of Health, Children’s Health Coalition and Ontario’s Science Table “regarding PPE use to protect schools and reduce risk to students and staff.”