OCDSB to debate forcing K-3 students to wear masks indoors

By OttawaMatters Staff

Trustees at Ottawa’s largest school board are to debating whether to require all of its students to wear masks when they go back to school.

Ontario’s back-to-school plan makes masks mandatory indoors for students in Grades 4 to 12, while younger children are expected to simply be encouraged to wear them.

Ottawa-Carleton District School Board Trustee Lyra Evans has proposed a motion that students in Kindergarten to Grade 3 at the be required to wear facial coverings whenever reasonable.

“I am not an epidemiologist, I'm not a medical doctor, I don't have a thorough understanding of how those recommendations were made,” says Evans. “But I'm listening to the recommendations from Toronto Public Health, the recommendation from the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario — that all students should be wearing masks when they go back to school.”

The trustee will be proposing a motion to the board, adding that she's heard support from families worried about their child bringing home COVID-19.

“I have definitely heard from families who say that the grandparents are involved in the children's caregiving, and there's concern that if the child catches COVID, or children catch COVID, they'll bring it back to the grandparents who are, of course, in a vulnerable population,” explains Evans.

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is set to meet Tuesday, August 25.

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