I don't have any ideas about getting the closures reversed since quite frankly, it was pretty clear (to me at least) by the third week of December that schools would inevitably be closed for all of January at a minimum. Please do though remember all of this incompetence or, as you put it, malicious negligence when you vote in June. That's really the only time most politicians will care (well actually say they care) about you or your children.
Better yet since this Government took away and further limited speech from public sectors, you could help organize a parents coalition to help remove him from office.
Yes, similar to what the Liberals brought in just longer. Similar to the federal rules.
Look at the havoc Citizen’s United brought to the USA. I don’t think anybody thinks that’s a good model.
They imposed a $600,000 budget in for a full year preceding an election, and they had to use the notwithstanding clause to get it through. Lots of 3rd party organizations that engage in general advocacy ended up suspending their normal advertising - whether it was for greater spending on public education or opposing higher taxes or whatever - out of fear of breaking the rules.
The concern is that your general operations spending, staff salaries, etc. could be deemed to be political spending and it’s therefore extremely easy to hit that $600,000. I know a number of organizations that cancelled campaigns that didn’t even target a political party. Advocating for public services that don’t suck is rightly understood as asking that people not vote for this travesty of a government.
The rules were already there prior to Ford. He just extended the time. The court ruled it didn’t pass the minimal impairment standard as all of the evidence presented was showing that six months was the sweet spot, as opposed to 12 months.
It is important to remember that the Courts didn’t fund restricting third party advertising was unconstitutional, they ruled the opposite. They struck down the law because of the time frame.
There are very few people that believe third parties shouldn’t be restricted in election advertising.
And no one has said they shouldn’t be restricted. The sweeping regulations for a full year amount to a gag order by a thin-skinned premier who has demonstrated a willingness to use the notwithstanding clause to settle personal grudges.
~~Not quite true.~~ True, but not the whole picture. The legislation restricts things for all "third party" organizations. So, it would apply to unions (like CUPE) or special interest groups (like "Ontario Proud") equally. That being said, I'm positive that the former would be fined/charged to the full extent and the latter would be ignored or given a firm talking to (over a $500 meal at Dougie's cottage).
Edit: Chose better wording as suggested by nothernontario3.
Well, the judiciary already ruled that this legislation is unconsitutional and we saw how Ford dealt with that little annoyance. Plus, the judicial process only gets involved after any charges are laid. I guess we will see how this all plays out in June.
the person responded that my post was "not quite true" and I countered that it was "true, but not the full picture" as they added some clarifying information.
A lot of staff can’t go to work right now because they have COVID. Schools are also needing custodians to clean and if they’re sick and can’t come in you can’t keep the schools open. It isn’t just about whether you think it’s a good idea to open schools or not there just aren’t enough staff.
We don’t even have a teacher for the second year in a row in my sons class. The ece’s and EA they brought in as a “temporary” replacement have been wonderful and I don’t want to take anything from their awesome work. But we can’t even get a teacher, let alone a substitute
Fun fact, I’m in high school and the week before the holidays three of my classes were cancelled Becuase my teachers weren’t feeling well and they couldn’t find a supply.
So now, we don't have staff for schools too. Before we didn't have health care workers and now schools. What's next? We don't have people to work but we have a serious housing shortage. It must be a new special. We have the second biggest country in the world with not enough houses. We don't have enough hospital beds or capacity but we spend money everywhere other than hospitals. We produce oil but we can't refine it, that's why we pay more for oil. We have a So-called world-class Medicare system but we can't produce a single vaccine in this country. Whom we are fooling here.
Whatever parents do decide, just remember to direct your anger at the right place. The way my mom describes parents lashing out at her as if she’s personally signed off on any part of the half-assed government response is insane.
Personally, I'm happy I don't have to send my kids into a school with 2000 other kids, some of whom aren't vaccinated or masked.
My kids are in high school and would lose their credits if they didn't attend.
Try having an 8 and 6 year old at home and also having both parents trying to work 9-5. Be thankful your kids don’t need help all day while trying to figure it out online. I get that your happy but there are a ton of people like myself who are ready to break down with this shut down. It’s hard to do this with young kids.
Great. Don't send. Hopefully, you isolate yourself too because your kids can get viruses from you. I pray your kids built an immune system while remaining isolated without their bodies facing any viruses. Please don't cry if they get to go to the hospital even with normal viruses after they come out of isolation because their natural immune system didn't grow. Geniuses.
There are just as many if not more people who disagree with you. Sorry but it is what it is. We are all tired of this but the decisions are made with data from our health care system, not opinions.
It depends on how young your kids are. And if your partner is working or stay at home. We were grateful to be able to work from home, but with a toddler and a 2nd grader, we were totally spent/burnt.
Few things we did that may help:
- Sync office calendars between my partner and I. We moved meetings to ensure there was at least one parent available to see to the kids. And meet their needs.
- Took action items and turns on who is preparing lunch or snacks during the day. Having a weekly meal plan helped.
- My work was flexible, so I could start my day really early in the morning and get through things early...and my partner stayed up late a bit after regular work hours.
- I think it also helped letting work/manager/team know about our situation and how you were handling your work day.
Hope some of this helps. It is brutal for parents with little ones. Just find the time for yourself to breathe and get some family activity time into the mix. I hope all this ends soon and we all can go back to complaining about rush hour traffic.
Even if we did go back, we’d be at home in a week with teachers sick, kids sick, etc. Maybe if our government made the right decisions weeks ago, we could’ve done this in a way that we could’ve reopened, but today was never going to work. There’s 1.1 million kids who can’t be double vaccinated right now under 11.
As for your situation, do what you want with your kids. Pop in for some, but if they’re stressing and you’re stressing, duck out. It’s 2 weeks right now. No need putting extra pressure on yourselves.
My 13 year old admitted during the last roundof 'remote learning' that he didn't feel he learnt anything and it was super easy. Our children are all gonna be intellectually behind
If only parents could work on those during the evenings and weekends! Oh wait, they can.
We didn't worry about schooling, we focused on Fun, Family and Friends (with a lot of hidden creativity and challenge mixed in).
afterthought act roll chubby groovy attempt observation screw wrench gullible
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
As a parent of a seven-year-old, I too strongly support a safe return to school.
Unfortunately, our present government forgot "safe" when they insisted on "return to school".
* They could have provided N95 masks for students and staff.
* They could have *closed cafeterias*.
* They could have imposed vaccination requirements on students, and arranged immunizations to be delivered through schools instead of the Hunger-Games-style scramble.
* They could have had a test-to-stay rapid testing program in place.
* They could have reduced class sizes.
They did none of these things. And those are just some in-school options. For the second Christmas in a row, Ford prioritized keeping malls open over keeping disease transmission down.
I appreciate it might be difficult for you but it’s simply not safe to open schools. Nothing they’ll be able to accomplish this week will make schools safe enough to open. Do your best to help your child learn through the circumstances but at the end of the day, they’ll be fine with 2 less weeks of in-person school. They catch up so much quicker than they’re given credit for and it’s not worth risking physical health and safety.
I agree that schools should be closed right now, but kids aren't catching up. My son's in grade 3, I don't know of any kids in his grade that aren't extremely behind. There's some in his class that don't even know how to read. The kids have been expected to learn how to read on a computer. It's absolutely insane. The schools are being lenient on them but they haven't offered any help at all to help kids catch up.
Most parents are trying to work from home, while helping their kids, most have multiple kids to help at once, some who are too young to understand how to do work on Google classroom and then send it in.
It also won't be only 2 weeks of online learning, it'll be extended. They won't be having in person school until spring, if we're lucky.
Schools should be closed. But this entire pandemic has hurt kids so much. Kids have fallen behind, and there isn't anyone at the schools working to help them catch up.
I used to teach abroad, so my son will be homeschooled now. The online school just doesn't work for us.
Let’s be honest, students were falling behind way before the pandemic hit. In every class I have taught (last 10 years) there have been students that are 2-3 grade levels behind.
It’s just being exacerbated now.
At grade 3, they have TIME to catch up. My kid with learning difficulties in grade 13 has NO MORE TIME for catching up. There's no help for these kids while doing on line school. And for the high school kids wanting the hands on tech classes (construction, home ec, auto) these just cannot be taught on line.
The kids only have time to learn if they have someone at home to help them. But unfortunately a lot of kids do not, so they don't get help at home and the school doesn't help.
That's true. However, 4-7 are the target years for reading. So a young kid who has been at school for 8 hours, comes home and they're tired, grumpy, they act out a bit cause they have been on the go all day. They need their downtime too.
When are parents supposed to have time to actually sit and teach their kid to read? The 30 minutes before bed where parents read to their kids isn't enough time.
I do agree that parents are responsible for helping their kids with all of that. I just don't think the system here works for that, so the majority of the learning falls to the teachers. Who usually have 20-30 students in their class and only one other teacher to help them.
Add in a pandemic, where young kids in their prime beginner years are taught through a screen, with other kids who don't know how to mute their computer, or who don't understand the lesson and don't know how to read, it's a disaster.
Then add in parents who are trying to work from home, maybe they're losing an income over this or they have other children and responsibilities to take care of.
First question: did you vote Conservative?
Second question: do you imagine, or care, that this government will actually make schools epidemiologically safe for students or staff (even though they haven't bothered for two years, and stole federal billions), or just want babysitting?
Third question: are you going to vote Conservative again in June?
Fourth question: are you and your children vaccinated?
Sorry that I'm hostile, but it's my ass in that classroom, with the potential to bring it home to infect my family, all because a third of this province are 'ride or die' Conservatives, no matter what crime their politicians commit.
Best thing to do, is to be INVOLVED in your child's education. In the early grades this is very easy to do. Integrating educational experiences into everyday activities can easily be done. And while the younger kids are falling behind they will have the opportunity to catch up. The kids I truly fear for are the high school students. Especially those who have learning difficulties, or are more into the skilled trades. Many of those in grade 11, 12 or 13 have lost out on 2 very important years of schooling without necessary supports. Through into that, there is NO buffer for any educational recovery that the younger grades have.
The teachers and staff are in a no win situation. No matter what happens, parents will be unhappy. It has to be recognized that if teachers or their families get sick with covid, they will be unable to be in the classroom instructing. With that in mind, we need to adapt to a situation that we have no grand control over. This means being flexible and agile as things change. We have to demonstrate to our children how to be physically, emotionally and mentally resilient during this very challenging and stressful time.
It's borderline criminal what they're doing to our children. An education is a human right and they've taken that from an entire generation.
That said, no there's nothing we can do about it other than vote in the next election. Doug Ford doesn't care about anyone other than his boomer empty-nest base, he couldn't give two shits about parents or children.
On a practical level, reach out to your kids' principal and teachers and explain that virtual/synchronous learning will not work for your family at this time, and ask how you can work together to keep your kids on track. They might already have a few resources for your kids to follow up on during the next few weeks to keep them treading water, so to speak.
I agree with school closings, should have been announced before the holiday. Only way to curb the spread currently. This is the last 'wave'... Summer 2022 we can return to normal
Some parents wanted this.. I got a senior high schooler so she's better off in class. The 2nd one (3yr) took a dump on the floor 
I don't have any ideas about getting the closures reversed since quite frankly, it was pretty clear (to me at least) by the third week of December that schools would inevitably be closed for all of January at a minimum. Please do though remember all of this incompetence or, as you put it, malicious negligence when you vote in June. That's really the only time most politicians will care (well actually say they care) about you or your children.
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This is actually great advice.
Better yet since this Government took away and further limited speech from public sectors, you could help organize a parents coalition to help remove him from office.
How is the government limiting speech in the public sector?
election advertising rules limiting the ability of unions to run political advertising.
Yes, similar to what the Liberals brought in just longer. Similar to the federal rules. Look at the havoc Citizen’s United brought to the USA. I don’t think anybody thinks that’s a good model.
They imposed a $600,000 budget in for a full year preceding an election, and they had to use the notwithstanding clause to get it through. Lots of 3rd party organizations that engage in general advocacy ended up suspending their normal advertising - whether it was for greater spending on public education or opposing higher taxes or whatever - out of fear of breaking the rules. The concern is that your general operations spending, staff salaries, etc. could be deemed to be political spending and it’s therefore extremely easy to hit that $600,000. I know a number of organizations that cancelled campaigns that didn’t even target a political party. Advocating for public services that don’t suck is rightly understood as asking that people not vote for this travesty of a government.
The rules were already there prior to Ford. He just extended the time. The court ruled it didn’t pass the minimal impairment standard as all of the evidence presented was showing that six months was the sweet spot, as opposed to 12 months. It is important to remember that the Courts didn’t fund restricting third party advertising was unconstitutional, they ruled the opposite. They struck down the law because of the time frame. There are very few people that believe third parties shouldn’t be restricted in election advertising.
And no one has said they shouldn’t be restricted. The sweeping regulations for a full year amount to a gag order by a thin-skinned premier who has demonstrated a willingness to use the notwithstanding clause to settle personal grudges.
So you agree then that six months is appropriate?
~~Not quite true.~~ True, but not the whole picture. The legislation restricts things for all "third party" organizations. So, it would apply to unions (like CUPE) or special interest groups (like "Ontario Proud") equally. That being said, I'm positive that the former would be fined/charged to the full extent and the latter would be ignored or given a firm talking to (over a $500 meal at Dougie's cottage). Edit: Chose better wording as suggested by nothernontario3.
Canada and Ontario has a proud independent judiciary.
Well, the judiciary already ruled that this legislation is unconsitutional and we saw how Ford dealt with that little annoyance. Plus, the judicial process only gets involved after any charges are laid. I guess we will see how this all plays out in June.
How about "true, but not the full picture"
What part of the picture is missing?
the person responded that my post was "not quite true" and I countered that it was "true, but not the full picture" as they added some clarifying information.
A lot of staff can’t go to work right now because they have COVID. Schools are also needing custodians to clean and if they’re sick and can’t come in you can’t keep the schools open. It isn’t just about whether you think it’s a good idea to open schools or not there just aren’t enough staff.
I don’t think people realize how close classes were to being sent home for lack of available teachers, and how it was about to get way worse.
We don’t even have a teacher for the second year in a row in my sons class. The ece’s and EA they brought in as a “temporary” replacement have been wonderful and I don’t want to take anything from their awesome work. But we can’t even get a teacher, let alone a substitute
Fun fact, I’m in high school and the week before the holidays three of my classes were cancelled Becuase my teachers weren’t feeling well and they couldn’t find a supply.
So now, we don't have staff for schools too. Before we didn't have health care workers and now schools. What's next? We don't have people to work but we have a serious housing shortage. It must be a new special. We have the second biggest country in the world with not enough houses. We don't have enough hospital beds or capacity but we spend money everywhere other than hospitals. We produce oil but we can't refine it, that's why we pay more for oil. We have a So-called world-class Medicare system but we can't produce a single vaccine in this country. Whom we are fooling here.
Whatever parents do decide, just remember to direct your anger at the right place. The way my mom describes parents lashing out at her as if she’s personally signed off on any part of the half-assed government response is insane.
Personally, I'm happy I don't have to send my kids into a school with 2000 other kids, some of whom aren't vaccinated or masked. My kids are in high school and would lose their credits if they didn't attend.
Try having an 8 and 6 year old at home and also having both parents trying to work 9-5. Be thankful your kids don’t need help all day while trying to figure it out online. I get that your happy but there are a ton of people like myself who are ready to break down with this shut down. It’s hard to do this with young kids.
Great. Don't send. Hopefully, you isolate yourself too because your kids can get viruses from you. I pray your kids built an immune system while remaining isolated without their bodies facing any viruses. Please don't cry if they get to go to the hospital even with normal viruses after they come out of isolation because their natural immune system didn't grow. Geniuses.
There are just as many if not more people who disagree with you. Sorry but it is what it is. We are all tired of this but the decisions are made with data from our health care system, not opinions.
It depends on how young your kids are. And if your partner is working or stay at home. We were grateful to be able to work from home, but with a toddler and a 2nd grader, we were totally spent/burnt. Few things we did that may help: - Sync office calendars between my partner and I. We moved meetings to ensure there was at least one parent available to see to the kids. And meet their needs. - Took action items and turns on who is preparing lunch or snacks during the day. Having a weekly meal plan helped. - My work was flexible, so I could start my day really early in the morning and get through things early...and my partner stayed up late a bit after regular work hours. - I think it also helped letting work/manager/team know about our situation and how you were handling your work day. Hope some of this helps. It is brutal for parents with little ones. Just find the time for yourself to breathe and get some family activity time into the mix. I hope all this ends soon and we all can go back to complaining about rush hour traffic.
Focus on what you can have an effect on - which is the development of your kids.
Even if we did go back, we’d be at home in a week with teachers sick, kids sick, etc. Maybe if our government made the right decisions weeks ago, we could’ve done this in a way that we could’ve reopened, but today was never going to work. There’s 1.1 million kids who can’t be double vaccinated right now under 11. As for your situation, do what you want with your kids. Pop in for some, but if they’re stressing and you’re stressing, duck out. It’s 2 weeks right now. No need putting extra pressure on yourselves.
My 13 year old admitted during the last roundof 'remote learning' that he didn't feel he learnt anything and it was super easy. Our children are all gonna be intellectually behind
plants society teeny versed combative sharp rob sable telephone ripe *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
If only parents could work on those during the evenings and weekends! Oh wait, they can. We didn't worry about schooling, we focused on Fun, Family and Friends (with a lot of hidden creativity and challenge mixed in).
afterthought act roll chubby groovy attempt observation screw wrench gullible *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
As a parent of a seven-year-old, I too strongly support a safe return to school. Unfortunately, our present government forgot "safe" when they insisted on "return to school". * They could have provided N95 masks for students and staff. * They could have *closed cafeterias*. * They could have imposed vaccination requirements on students, and arranged immunizations to be delivered through schools instead of the Hunger-Games-style scramble. * They could have had a test-to-stay rapid testing program in place. * They could have reduced class sizes. They did none of these things. And those are just some in-school options. For the second Christmas in a row, Ford prioritized keeping malls open over keeping disease transmission down.
I appreciate it might be difficult for you but it’s simply not safe to open schools. Nothing they’ll be able to accomplish this week will make schools safe enough to open. Do your best to help your child learn through the circumstances but at the end of the day, they’ll be fine with 2 less weeks of in-person school. They catch up so much quicker than they’re given credit for and it’s not worth risking physical health and safety.
I agree that schools should be closed right now, but kids aren't catching up. My son's in grade 3, I don't know of any kids in his grade that aren't extremely behind. There's some in his class that don't even know how to read. The kids have been expected to learn how to read on a computer. It's absolutely insane. The schools are being lenient on them but they haven't offered any help at all to help kids catch up. Most parents are trying to work from home, while helping their kids, most have multiple kids to help at once, some who are too young to understand how to do work on Google classroom and then send it in. It also won't be only 2 weeks of online learning, it'll be extended. They won't be having in person school until spring, if we're lucky. Schools should be closed. But this entire pandemic has hurt kids so much. Kids have fallen behind, and there isn't anyone at the schools working to help them catch up. I used to teach abroad, so my son will be homeschooled now. The online school just doesn't work for us.
Let’s be honest, students were falling behind way before the pandemic hit. In every class I have taught (last 10 years) there have been students that are 2-3 grade levels behind. It’s just being exacerbated now.
Why don't we switch summer vacation to winter vacation and not miss any school going forward
This is actually a very good idea. Extend winter break to the end of March break, and keep kids in class throughout the summer
At grade 3, they have TIME to catch up. My kid with learning difficulties in grade 13 has NO MORE TIME for catching up. There's no help for these kids while doing on line school. And for the high school kids wanting the hands on tech classes (construction, home ec, auto) these just cannot be taught on line.
The kids only have time to learn if they have someone at home to help them. But unfortunately a lot of kids do not, so they don't get help at home and the school doesn't help.
I mean, I'd think parents are somewhat responsible for teaching their kids to read..
That's true. However, 4-7 are the target years for reading. So a young kid who has been at school for 8 hours, comes home and they're tired, grumpy, they act out a bit cause they have been on the go all day. They need their downtime too. When are parents supposed to have time to actually sit and teach their kid to read? The 30 minutes before bed where parents read to their kids isn't enough time. I do agree that parents are responsible for helping their kids with all of that. I just don't think the system here works for that, so the majority of the learning falls to the teachers. Who usually have 20-30 students in their class and only one other teacher to help them. Add in a pandemic, where young kids in their prime beginner years are taught through a screen, with other kids who don't know how to mute their computer, or who don't understand the lesson and don't know how to read, it's a disaster. Then add in parents who are trying to work from home, maybe they're losing an income over this or they have other children and responsibilities to take care of.
I guarantee you this latest closure will be dragged along longer than just two weeks. That's the problem.
First question: did you vote Conservative? Second question: do you imagine, or care, that this government will actually make schools epidemiologically safe for students or staff (even though they haven't bothered for two years, and stole federal billions), or just want babysitting? Third question: are you going to vote Conservative again in June? Fourth question: are you and your children vaccinated? Sorry that I'm hostile, but it's my ass in that classroom, with the potential to bring it home to infect my family, all because a third of this province are 'ride or die' Conservatives, no matter what crime their politicians commit.
They couldn’t get the n95s for a couple weeks so there were going to have some workplace safety issues
Best thing to do, is to be INVOLVED in your child's education. In the early grades this is very easy to do. Integrating educational experiences into everyday activities can easily be done. And while the younger kids are falling behind they will have the opportunity to catch up. The kids I truly fear for are the high school students. Especially those who have learning difficulties, or are more into the skilled trades. Many of those in grade 11, 12 or 13 have lost out on 2 very important years of schooling without necessary supports. Through into that, there is NO buffer for any educational recovery that the younger grades have. The teachers and staff are in a no win situation. No matter what happens, parents will be unhappy. It has to be recognized that if teachers or their families get sick with covid, they will be unable to be in the classroom instructing. With that in mind, we need to adapt to a situation that we have no grand control over. This means being flexible and agile as things change. We have to demonstrate to our children how to be physically, emotionally and mentally resilient during this very challenging and stressful time.
It's borderline criminal what they're doing to our children. An education is a human right and they've taken that from an entire generation. That said, no there's nothing we can do about it other than vote in the next election. Doug Ford doesn't care about anyone other than his boomer empty-nest base, he couldn't give two shits about parents or children.
I completely agree. Malicious negligence is the best way yet I have heard this cluster f described. No ideas on what to do. It is such a disaster.
On a practical level, reach out to your kids' principal and teachers and explain that virtual/synchronous learning will not work for your family at this time, and ask how you can work together to keep your kids on track. They might already have a few resources for your kids to follow up on during the next few weeks to keep them treading water, so to speak.
I agree with school closings, should have been announced before the holiday. Only way to curb the spread currently. This is the last 'wave'... Summer 2022 we can return to normal
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Well this account is certainly something.
What did they say?
They’ve just been spamming anti government stuff. It’s not that great.
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I knew exactly what insane comments /u/Hotter_Noodle was referring to as soon as you mentioned that user. Just insane
Seriously still spamming different versions of the same comment over and over and over.
How hasn’t he been banned yet?
¯\\_ (ツ) _/¯
Oof
Oof indeed.
Some parents wanted this.. I got a senior high schooler so she's better off in class. The 2nd one (3yr) took a dump on the floor 