(Brockville) – The Upper Canada District School Board announced today that community use activities in all of its schools will resume on Monday, November 16th. The Board cancelled those activities on November 2nd because 38 of its 89 schools reported student and staff absenteeism above 10% due to flu-like symptoms. The cancellation was required to allow the Board’s custodial staff the time required to execute heightened cleaning protocols, which includes sanitizing all common, hard surfaces.
“We can confirm a significant decrease in the rate of student and staff absenteeism for flu-like symptoms over the past two weeks. In consultation with our regional health units we are restoring community use activities in our schools, subject to the approval of the school principal,” stated Ian Carswell, Associate Director.
“It’s important to manage our staffing levels and workload while supporting additional activities such as community use,” added Carswell.
Heightened cleaning routines will continue at the schools that are still reporting absenteeism rates above 10%. The last survey of schools, conducted yesterday (November 11th), showed only one Upper Canada school had a rate above 10%.
As well, the resumption of field trips, co-instructional and extra-curricular activities, professional development activities, and other activities that require occasional or replacement staff, is subject to the approval of the school principal.
The school board will continue to monitor the absenteeism rates of students and staff reporting flu-like symptoms in all schools.
For schools reporting greater than 10% absenteeism facilities staff will maintain heightened surface cleaning protocols within those schools and principals may still consider limiting activities.
The Board would only reinstate a moratorium on community use activities if it were to experience a return to a widespread outbreak of flu-like symptoms. “The fact that we were able to sustain uninterrupted operations by taking this action provides us with experience that we can apply to the future,” stated Carswell.
Board Chair Greg Pietersma added, “We are extremely grateful for the hard work and dedication of our staff and for the patience and understanding of our community partners.”
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For further information please contact:
Terry Simzer
Manager of Communications
613-342-0371 ext. 1119
Posted November 12, 2009