The two largest school boards in Lambton-Kent are getting ready to send rapid antigen COVID-19 tests home with students next week.
The tests are voluntary and the intent is to send them home with students on Thursday. The students can return to school in January even if they don't use the tests.
Lambton-Kent District School Board Education Director John Howitt said there are five tests in each kit and instructional videos will also be available on the Ministry of Education website beginning Monday.
St. Clair Catholic District School Board Education Director Scott Johnson said the tests are for students only during the Christmas break and are not intended for family members.
Letters will be going out to parents soon.
Johnson said it's been a bad week for school COVID-19 outbreaks and he hopes that, as vaccination rates increase among students, the spread of infection will decline. He also said close contacts are being isolated quickly to prevent spread at schools and are being cleared to return to school faster than before when they test negative.
"Not only are we seeing a decrease in the number of cases in our secondary schools, the other advantage we're seeing is when there is a case in a school, the number of students who are welcomed back to school the very next day is increasing every week," said Johnson. "Even when there is a positive case, it is having smaller implications on student learning with increasing numbers of vaccination. I think we're winning on both fronts in secondary. We're having fewer cases, but equally important is when we have those cases, the impact on learning losses is minimized when students are welcomed back the next day."
Howitt said there are more cases and outbreaks in elementary schools than in secondary schools because most of the younger students aren't vaccinated yet.
Both Johnson and Howitt also said the pandemic has been very hard on public health and their own school staff.
"Not everybody is welcoming of the news when their children are being dismissed. So, we're seeing some of the same aggression towards our staff that is concerning to us from a staff well-being point of view," Howitt said.
Five of the eight COVID-19 outbreaks in Chatham-Kent are at elementary schools and have a combined 17 cases.
Chatham-Kent Public Health is reporting that 20.4 per cent of the population 5-11 have had one dose and 1.8 per cent have had two doses.
As for rumours that the school holiday break will be extended and students will be returning to online learning, Howitt said they are not true and school is expected to resume as usual in the New Year.
"We have had no notice from any official channels or even any innuendo in talking with any ministry officials that there will be an extension to the current holiday break. We have heard the rumour mill and that being discussed at some other public health units but we have not heard that locally at this point," said Howitt.
Johnson said he and Howitt met with the Deputy Minister of Education on Thursday morning and nothing was mentioned about closing schools in January.
Chatham-Kent Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Colby said he could order schools to close if there were extreme circumstances but he's not inclined to do it because of jurisdictional boundaries.
"Both of our school boards extend beyond the borders of Chatham-Kent and it would create a terrible administrative nightmare to have people on side of the border doing that (in-class learning) and not on the other," said Colby. "Theoretically it's possible, but is that likely to happen? No, it's not."
Colby said his counter part in Lambton would have to agree to close schools before any of them shutdown.
