Southwestern Ontario's largest school board has shot down the idea of reinstating a mask mandate.
Thames Valley District School board trustees voted down the motion put forward by Trustee Corrine Rahman during a special board meeting on Tuesday night.
In asking for the return of mandatory face coverings, Rahman cited a Public Health Ontario report from April 8 that indicated the temporary re-implementation of masking requirements indoors can reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission in-school.
The Thames Valley board has been dealing with an increasingly high number of staff absences linked to illness. Roughly 10 per cent or 1,000 board employees are currently out sick or having to quarantine, according to Education Director Mark Fisher. More than a dozen of the board's schools have reported absences of more than 20 per cent.
"We are dealing with significant challenges within our educational system. We must act to stabilize our local schools and help the community to blunt the sixth wave of COVID-19," said Rahman. "Tonight we have ahead of us a decision: Is the inconvenience of temporarily extending the least intrusive measure, masking, so burdensome that we shouldn't do it, or is it possible that this small action can help to keep people safer and keep schools open?”
Rahman stressed the board needs to do everything it can to keep staff and students safe and its schools open.
However, the board's general legal counsel advised trustees they do not have the authority to go against the guidance and directive of the provincial government.
"School boards must comply with measures imposed by the chief medical officer of health and in some instances from the Ministry of Labour. Absent direction from these sources, school boards do not have the independent authority to prescribe public health measures in response to an infectious disease such as COVID-19," said Ali Chahbar.
The provincial government lifted mandatory masking in most indoor public settings, including schools, on March 21.
The motion to reinstate mandatory face coverings within the board, while not voted on directly, was defeated through a point of order that the motion itself was outside of the Board of Trustees’ authority.
Trustees heard from the medical officer of health for Middlesex-London and Oxford and Elgin counties minutes before considering the idea of reinstating masks.
Middlesex London Medical Officer of Health Dr. Alex Summers told trustees he strongly supports masking in indoor settings for individuals of all ages, but stopped short of endorsing a mandate.
"The strong recommendation around the utility of masking will likely carry us through at least until the end of May if not slightly beyond given the trajectory we are seeing," said Summers.
He noted that elevated levels of COVID-19 in the community are expected to remain for at least the next two months.
Thames Valley's debate over the possible return of the mask mandate came on the same night the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board voted to reinstate the measure.
