All schools in Windsor and Essex County will be closed for the rest of the year due to climbing cases of COVID-19 in the region.
Dr. Wajid Ahmed, the region’s medical officer of health, has issued a Section 22 order, mandating all elementary and high school students to switch to remote learning starting on Dec. 14.
“This order will be in place for one week from Dec. 14 to 18, which will bring students into the school holiday break,” Ahmed said in a statement.
“The health and safety of students and staff remains a priority for the WECHU (Windsor-Essex County Health Unit). This action is being taken in an effort to keep our community safe and prevent further spread of COVID-19.”
Schools will remain open for teachers and staff as well as full-time daycare facilities.
The schools are scheduled to reopen to students after the holiday break on Jan. 4.
WECHU said it is working with school boards to “ensure that continuity of learning remains a priority during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Two schools in the region are currently dealing with an outbreak.
The Greater Essex County District School Board said elementary students will follow their current school’s start and end times.
“Secondary students, in the Adapted model, will shift to online 150-minute learning blocks - separated by a one-hour break – each day,” the board said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board said all of its high school teachers were supplied with webcams earlier this year and will continue to teach online.
“At the elementary level, we proactively ordered new Chromebooks and webcams in order to support teacher instruction and student learning. Prior to being dismissed from school on Friday, elementary teachers will be providing their students with further instruction on how to access their classrooms online,” the board said in a statement.
“Although we cannot guarantee additional devices for every student, our IT department will do its absolute best to try to accommodate all requests.”
WECHU reported 104 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday after logging a single-day high of infections the previous day.
“My initial reaction, and I’ll just be honest and blunt, I said to Theresa (Windsor-Essex’s Chief Executive Officer) let’s just close our office and go home. There’s nothing we can do. It seems like it’s just non-stop and it doesn’t matter whatever we’re trying to support,” Ahmed said during a press conference on Wednesday.
“I request to you; I beg you to follow the public health guidelines to bring the cases down in our region.”
Windsor-Essex is in the red “control” level of the province’s five-tiered framework.
