'A lot of anxiety': Return of in-person learning met with mixed emotions across Windsor-Essex

Schools in Ontario are on track to reopen next week, but many educators and parents across Windsor-Essex have mixed emotions about the move from online learning.

Two teachers' unions in the region say they still have major questions left unanswered about the return to in-person learning, and about what makes schools safer than they were two weeks ago.

"There's a lot of anxiety of going back into the classroom," said Mario Spagnuolo, local president of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO).

"The kids need to go back. Kids are lagging behind of where they could have been if we were in person. The missing piece is, are we doing that safely?" Spangnuolo said.

Last week, amid surging COVID-19 cases fuelled by the Omicron variant, the Ontario government moved all publicly funded and private schools to remote learning.

Ford said the government couldn't guarantee schools would be fully staffed, with so many teachers expected to be off sick. The schools were expected to be closed for at least two weeks.

Ford's Jan. 3 announcement came just days after Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, said the return to school would be pushed back but would still be in-person. Moore had said the province wanted to give schools extra time to provide N95 masks to staff and to deploy 3,000 HEPA filter units.

Meanwhile, the realities of staffing shortages and a lack of HEPA filter units and other personal protective equipment have not been resolved in the Windsor region in the last two weeks, according to Spangnuolo.

He said ETFO has not received any confirmation about the number of N95 masks that will be available for staff, and HEPA filters are still not installed in every classroom across the local public school board.

Spangnuolo adds that low vaccination rates among students locally, low booster availability for teachers, and a lack of contact tracing in classrooms are all major concerns moving forward.

Those concerns are also shared by Sumbal Khan, who is a mom of two in Windsor.

Khan kids are in junior kindergarten and grade seven. She said the idea of returning to in-person learning at this point is taking a toll on her mentally, adding that the return date of Jan. 17 is "creeping up like the cases in Windsor."

She said if her kids are exposed at school and have to isolate, the whole family will be affected.

"I cannot continue my work, my husband would have to isolate. And we don't know how many times we will have to isolate, right, when you have two kids," said Khan.