Superior-Greenstone Region School Boards’* Communicating COVID Info with School Communities (*majority of)
The Ministry of Education, acknowledging the understandable interest of parents, students and staff to know when a COVID-19 positive case has been identified in their school, has directed school boards to create a COVID-19 advisory section on their website where they will clearly post information and updates regarding confirmed cases of COVID-19 that involves a student or a staff member in a school setting.
Regarding school boards’ COVID-19 Advisory Sections and what information should be included:
Note that no personal information will be made public. As cases for students or staff members are resolved, boards and schools will update the COVID-19 advisory section of their website to remove information about these cases.
In the interests of privacy, information posted by boards to school communities will not identify the student or staff member that has received a positive COVID-19 test.
If public health advises that a class, cohort or a school will be closed for a period of time, parents, students and staff will be notified immediately.
Notice of any closures of classes, cohorts or schools will be posted on school and school board COVID-19 advisory sections.
From Ontario Government’s “Operational guidance: COVID-19 management in schools“. To review full document from the Ontario Government’s website, CLICK HERE.
To help you find this info, we’ve provided links directly to the COVID-19 Advisory pages (click on school board name) of boards which operate schools in our region:
- Superior North Catholic District School Board
- Superior-Greenstone District School Board (scroll down the page to find their COVID status chart)
- Conseil Scolaire de district catholique des Aurores Boréales
- Conseil Scolaire Public du Grand Nord de l’Ontario*
*Having been unable to find the CSPGNO’s COVID-19 Advisory page (after approximately an hour of clicking links on the website searching any pages mentioning COVID-19), I reached out to CSPGNO asking for a link to the correct page on their site. Unfortunately, the CSPGNO’s Director of Communications Carol Dubé responded that “The Board created a page but since we don’t have any cases of COVID-19 in our schools, this page currently remains inactive*. If ever we find ourselves with cases in CSPGNO schools we’ll need to post the cases on our website. [translated]“ *an inactive webpage is not accessible/visible to regular visitors to a website.
It is important for boards to provide COVID-19 information, as instructed by the province, for parents, students, staff and community members, including when there have been zero cases (as done by other school boards linked above). A table showing 0 cases is clear and easy to understand whereas the absence of a COVID-19 Advisory Page leaves CSPGNO website visitors to guess whether the board has yet to post the required info, whether the visitor simply hasn’t searched the right pages on the site, etc. Also, regardless of the details currently listed on a school board’s advisory page, those visiting can bookmark that page to easily visit again when wanting an update (including to confirm there has been no change) – this is not possible with the CSPGNO’s “inactive page”.
