Ted Barris

The countdown continues to Sept. 8, when all high schools in Ontario begin the fall 2020 semester, and about the same when elementary school children begin a staggered re-entry to class. But the jostling continues too. The premier and his ministers of education and health are on one side. And the rest of us sit on the other, trying to get a handle on the way learning will look and sound come Sept. 15 or thereabouts. Then, on Tuesday, Christine Elliott responded to a question from a reporter at the government’s daily media conference.

“Why can’t the Ontario government mandate class size at 15 students?” the reporter asked.

And Ms. Elliott stepped to the microphone and explained that she too has three adult children who’ve been facing some of the same questions the rest of us face. Then, she defended the province’s decision not to keep class sizes at 15. “We cannot promise zero risk in schools,” she said.

The moment she said that, I had to concede that perhaps she was right. The same way seatbelts cannot guarantee 100 per cent survival in a collision, or having a fire extinguisher in one’s home doesn’t ensure survival in a fire, or – maybe even more relevant – that no vaccine can protect everybody from every infection… there’s no sure-fire way to keep children at school completely free of COVID-19.

However, unlike people’s personal vehicles, preventing fires in private homes or fighting off viruses and disease with vaccines, school classrooms are pretty static places with extremely controllable environments.

First of all, outside of hospitals, I can’t think of any other public institutions in Ontario’s communities, where there are more regulations, protocols, guidelines, systems and just plain rules of engagement than our schools. They’re governed by provincial laws, boards of education bylaws, principals’ experience, educators’ professional conduct, ethical and moral standards and, if nothing else, Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for goodness sake.

And with classrooms about to open after a six-month lockdown, one would think provincial education and health ministries have had ample time to consider all the variables and therefore conclude – as with everything else – that students in classrooms have to be arranged with the priority of preventing COVID-19 transmission, nearly above all else.

I have a number of friends in my immediate bubble who are experienced teachers – at the elementary, high school and university level. One informed me that custodians at her public elementary school have reconfigured her class to hold 21 desks; she pointed out that none of the 21 desks is the required two-metre physical distance from any of the others.

What’s more, she’s going to have to find room for more pupils. They’ve assigned 23 to her classroom, not 21. Instructors at the high school and college levels say that the online alternative will help keep those teaching environments safer. But clearly we can’t expect all secondary and post-secondary learning to happen in front of a computer screen.

And when high schoolers do return to classrooms, the way COVID-19 is trending (with more younger adults contracting it than older ones), I’m inclined to agree with the teachers’ unions. All four of them are demanding the province pay attention to its own labour laws. Harvey Bischof, president of the secondary teachers’ union, spoke to reporters on Monday.

“We are looking for the ministry (of labour) to issue … orders to keep students safe in schools,” meaning the two-metre distancing that the government expects everywhere else.

But the health minister’s comment that her government “cannot promise zero risk in schools” bothered me for other reasons. It seems to me that on March 17, when the premier declared a state of emergency – closing office buildings, day-care facilities, churches, parks and playgrounds, libraries, restaurants, bars, concert halls, movie theatres, swimming pools, gymnasiums … and schools – he was enforcing zero risk on everybody in the province.

Indeed, during his daily trips to the lectern at Queen’s Park with his ministers in tow, nearly every day Premier Doug Ford demanded zero tolerance of anything but complete compliance. And all 14 million Ontarians – as he often repeated – have done their best to stay within his guidelines through all three stages of re-opening too.

So, why can’t his administration apply the same precautionary measures in Ontario schools? If physical distancing must happen with desks in office towers, chairs in barbershops, dining tables in restaurants or outside on sidewalk patios, why not where the most precious of this province’s assets – Ontario’s children – be treated the same way? What’s good for the economic and social goose, must be as good for the education gander.

The premier said he was “begging for teachers’ unions to work with us.” Meanwhile, a growing number of parents, teachers and even students –are begging the province to live up to the same zero tolerance of allowing a second wave that it’s demanding everywhere else.