A Catholic Elementary School in Cambridge is closing for two days, due to staffing concerns caused by COVID-19.
St. Teresa of Calcutta Catholic Elementary School on Saginaw Parkway will switch to virtual learning for Wednesday, Apr. 13 and Thursday, Apr. 14.
A letter to families posted on the school’s website said there have been members of the school community who have tested positive for COVID-19, and a number of staff who are currently off.
Concerns about staffing and the ability to safely deliver programming led to the decision to close the school.
“At the end of the day, it’s about whether we can safely operate,” said Loretta Notten, the director of education for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board.
Notten said 13 of 41 staff are off, and 75 students are absent.
Students will be provided with Chromebooks for virtual learning during the closure.
The plan is to reopen the school on Tuesday, Apr. 19, following the Easter break.
The board said the closure was not mandated by public health but was made out of an “abundance of caution” due to the staffing challenges.
Notten said absenteeism is a challenge across the board.
“We have redeployed some of our central staff, all of our central staff, really, to back fill absences. We do have unqualified teachers who are helping us to fill absences. And we’re really doing everything we can within our tool kit to assist the situation,” she said.
The union representing Ontario's English Catholic teachers said the closure is not surprising, given the high number of covid-19 cases in the community.
Patrick Etmanksi, the president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) for Waterloo Region said he expects more schools will temporarily close in the near future.
“I think this is a tip of a very large iceberg, unfortunately,” Etmanski said. “Easter weekend, it is what it is. There are no lockdowns, there are no protocols in place to limit gatherings anymore, and so I can only imagine going forward, two weeks or less after the Easter weekend, things will be worse than they are now.”
He wants to see masks become mandatory in schools once again.
“We seem to be at ground zero right now,” he said. “And very little is being done to protect those people who work in those buildings and those kids that go to school everyday.”
The Waterloo Catholic District School Board said it will continue to follow the advice of the province’s chief medical officer of health, and keep masking a choice.
