Dear Minister Lecce and Dr. Moore,

We are parents, educators, professionals who work with children, and others who care about children’s well-being. Ongoing school disruptions due to pandemic control measures are hurting Ontario’s children and families. 

Ontario’s schools were closed the longest of any jurisdiction in Canada, pushing children and families into crisis.Documented harms include learning losses, household income losses, long-term economic losses across children’s life spans, increased family stress and dysfunction, and deteriorated physical and mental health for both children and their parents.

Students who are not fully vaccinated continue to face school disruptions - and their associated harms - due to the practice of quarantining after an exposure in the classroom, school yard, or bus. 

Evidence indicates that the practice of quarantine is not without harm: it is associated with elevated mental distress and PTSD for both parents and children. The harms of school disruptions are exacerbated for children and families in schools experiencing ongoing outbreaks with some children cycling in and out of quarantine every few weeks. 

Policy decisions of this magnitude should be informed by data and high quality evidence. Yet there is not regular reporting on the scope of this practice and its intended and unintended outcomes. 

We call upon you to provide the public with regular reports, at the Public Health Unit and provincial level, on the following for common dismissal cohorts (e.g. classroom, school yard, and bus), de-aggregated by students over 12 and under 12 and by income quintile:

• The number of cohorts placed into isolation;
• The number of days of lost in-person learning;
• The number of cases found within isolated cohorts for which there is no out-of-school exposure (as a means to collect evidence for low versus high risk exposures).

We further call upon you to review the evidence for alternative strategies for COVID-19 mitigation that cause less disruption to the well-being of children and families, such as the use of rapid antigen testing for exposed cohorts. 

It is imperative that we do not continue to cause unnecessary harm to Ontario’s children and families. The practice of quarantining whole cohorts should only be continued if it has a significant benefit in terms of preventing onward transmission of COVID-19,  and there is no equally good alternative that is less disruptive to the well-being of children and families.