ministry of education reporting covid cases

Ontario will no longer report school, child care COVID-19 numbers: Ministry of Education memos

'Parents have to decide to send their kids to school not knowing if the school has a high number of COVID cases'

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TORONTO — Ontario will no longer be reporting COVID-19 case figures in schools or child-care settings amid an ongoing, provincewide surge in new infections, according to a pair of memos from the Ministry of Education.

The directives to school boards and childcare centre operators, written on Thursday and released by opposition critics a day later, say the provincial government is suspending the reporting of cases in these facilities because of “changes to case and contact management.”

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“Further information will be shared shortly with school boards on reporting expectations of absences in schools and school closures due to COVID-19, in conjunction with educational and paediatric leaders,” Minister of Education Stephen Lecce and deputy minister Nancy Naylor write in one of the letters.

Lecce and Naylor’s letter and the other memo sent by Holly Moran, an assistant deputy minister in the ministry’s early years and child care division, do not say whether the guidelines will be distributed before the start of classes on Jan. 5.

The Ministry of Education did not respond to request for comment on the memos.

The memos were released Friday by the opposition New Democrats, who are calling for Ontario Premier Doug Ford to reverse the decision to end reporting at these institutions.

“Parents have to decide to send their kids to school not knowing if the school has a high number of COVID cases,” NDP education critic Marit Stiles said, in a release.

“If we can’t track where the virus is, we can’t fight it.”

She also noted on Twitter that school principals have a duty under the Health Protection and Promotion Act to report it to the local public health unit if they are “of the opinion that a pupil in the school has or may have a communicable disease.”

Stiles’ comments came on the heels of the province’s decision Thursday to delay the return to school by two days to help schools better cope with COVID-19.

The delay was announced at the same time that the province revealed it would significantly curtail who is eligible for government-funded COVID-19 testing.

Testing is now available only for individuals in high-risk settings who are symptomatic or are at risk of severe illness from the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the virus.

The variant is causing the province’s COVID-19 case counts to soar and repeatedly break records set days before.

On Saturday, Public Health Ontario said the province reached a new daily record for new COVID-19 cases.

The organization reported 18,445 more COVID-19 cases, up from the previous record set just a day earlier when there were 16,713 infections reported.

However, it warned the true number of cases is likely higher than the figure it reported for the day.

It said the number of infected Ontarians is an “underestimate” because recent policy changes have made COVID-19 testing less accessible just as cases linked to the Omicron variant are climbing.

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Ontario to stop logging COVID-19 school cases, memo says; NDP calls it 'terrifying for parents'

Schools and child-care settings to receive pcr testing, advised to continue screening for cases.

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Ontario will stop reporting COVID-19 cases in schools and child-care settings, memos from the Ministry of Education say, prompting criticism from the opposition New Democratic Party, which called the move "terrifying for parents."

In memos sent to school boards and child-care licensees dated Dec. 30, the ministry said it is implementing new health and safety measures in schools and child-care facilities, citing recent changes to its case and contact management strategy. The memos were shared in a news release by the NDP on Friday.

On Thursday, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore announced that the province is shortening isolation requirements , limiting testing to high-risk groups and reopening schools next Wednesday, Jan 5. , rather than Monday. Child-care programs, however, will be permitted to operate beginning Jan. 3.

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In a statement issued Friday, the Ontario NDP called on the provincial government to reverse testing and tracing cuts.

"If we can't track where the virus is, we can't fight it," education critic Marit Stiles said.

Here's the relevant section of the memo to school boards related to schools. <a href="https://t.co/ayjCfV6KUX">pic.twitter.com/ayjCfV6KUX</a> &mdash; @maritstiles

"Doug Ford is leaving our littlest kids unprotected, and even going so far as to stop testing and reporting — he's trying to hide the damage, and the danger of his choices," said child-care critic Bhutila Karpoche.

"How are parents supposed to make decisions to keep their kids safe?"

Asked Thursday if the move to limit testing to high-risk individuals was a political one, Moore pushed back, saying the province would test everyone if it had the capacity. 

"We have to pivot, we know there's ongoing community activity, we know we'll have transmission risk, that data has to focus to screen those who need treatment and to protect those in high-risk settings," Moore told reporters at Thursday's media conference. 

The NDP's statement also notes that children under five cannot be vaccinated and that many child-care centres have been using negative PCR tests to allow a child to return after symptoms.

In a statement, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) confirmed the Ministry of Education will no longer be collecting COVID-19 case numbers from school boards.

The TDSB said it's reviewing how reporting and notification of cases will occur moving forward.

Province preparing for surge

In an interview on CBC Radio's Metro Morning on Friday, Moore said that the province's new metric for monitoring the spread of Omicron will be "how well our hospitals can continue to provide care" and not necessarily daily case counts.

He noted again that the province is preparing for a surge in the coming weeks.

"We're monitoring the admissions to hospital and the ICU numbers around the clock to ensure we have capacity," Moore said.

LISTEN | Ontario's Dr. Kieran Moore explains province's plan for testing, schools:

While the Ministry of Health will suspend reporting of COVID-19 cases in schools and child care, the memos say it will still accept submissions of serious occurrences of confirmed cases of the virus from schools and child-care facilities. Elementary and secondary students and staff who are symptomatic are eligible for PCR tests if they receive a self-collection kit through their schools.

Moore said absenteeism will be the main indicator for the spread.

"Given that Omicron is so rapidly spreading, we're basically reporting on what proportion of students are absent at any given time to allow public health to concentrate on those high-risk settings," he said.

'All of this is avoidable'

Moore had also advised the education and child-care sectors to plan for potentially higher than normal absenteeism in the coming weeks, with widespread community transmission of Omicron expected.

With the latest announcements on schools and child care, infection control epidemiologist Colin Furness said he feels "abandoned" by the province.

"We're in for a really rough ride for the next few weeks," he told  Metro Morning on Friday. "I feel that kids and teachers have been abandoned. We're set up to be mass infected over the next several days, and we don't have the health supports in order to be able to deal with that."

"All of this is avoidable, so I'm feeling pretty unhappy," Furness said. 

"We could have built up the testing capacity. There's no question we could have. We made a conscious decision as a province not to do that. We've had 20 months. The technologies are there. We decided not to."

Furness has now written a letter to Toronto Public Health and Peel Public Health asking them to delay school openings for 13 school days. He believes that's enough time to get through the Omicron wave and vaccinate more staff and children.

"There's no question that we are going to see much of the population in Ontario exposed, from infants all the way to long-term care home residents and our health system can't cope with that," he said.

In an email to CBC News, Toronto Public Health did not confirm receipt of the letter, but said it was reviewing the provincial announcement and will provide updates to the public when details are confirmed.

Peel Public Health confirmed receipt of Furness's letter but said no additional local measures are under consideration.

Education minister has not spoken publicly

In his interview on Metro Morning, Moore said he believed Minister of Education Stephen Lecce would speak publicly Friday about school reopenings. CBC News has made repeated attempts to contact the minister of education and received a response on Friday night.

In an email statement, Ministry of Education spokesperson Caitlin Clark said it is following Ministry of Health requirements.

"As per the new Ministry of Health requirement, no sector will have access to the accurate case data, including in the education sector, which is required in order to report COVID-19 cases in schools and child-care settings," Clark wrote.

"We will continue to report school and child-care closures and will be providing school boards with updated operational guidance on reporting expectations of absences and closures."

The ministry also reiterated Moore's comments on focusing on high-risk Ontarians as part of the province's pivot in strategy.

The ministry of education has announced it will provide children in schools and child care with three-ply cloth masks to encourage use of a higher quality mask, while staff will have the option for a non-fit-tested N95 mask.

The province says anyone with symptoms suggesting COVID-19 must self-isolate, regardless of vaccination status. However, that isolation period has been reduced to five days, and applies to everyone in the household.

Specific instructions for schools and child care are: if a child or staff member is experiencing one symptom associated with COVID-19, or two or more symptoms less commonly associated with COVID-19, they must self-isolate.

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Schools and child-care programs qualify for rapid antigen tests and the ministry of education said it will expand access to them. It's also deploying 5,000 standalone HEPA filter units, it said in its memo Friday. 

According to the memo, "all schools are required to reinstate daily on-site confirmation of screening for all students and staff until further notice."

In the event of staff shortages, child-care facilities are asked to assign staff and children to different groups to accommodate staffing needs.

Medical director of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital Dr. Michael Warner agrees with Furness regarding the need to wait to reopen schools. 

Delaying return to school by 1-2 weeks buys us time to make it safer. <a href="https://t.co/sef9B2Hb1Q">pic.twitter.com/sef9B2Hb1Q</a> &mdash; @drmwarner

In a video posted on Twitter, Warner says a one-to-two week delay in reopening schools and child care can help prioritize boosters for education staff.

"Their environment is no less risky than mine," he said. "In one or two weeks the peak may be past us."

With files from Metro Morning

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Ontario to stop collecting COVID-19 numbers from school boards, suspend reporting of cases

The Ontario government will stop collecting COVID-19 numbers from school boards and suspend reporting of new coronavirus infections among students and staff starting next week.

The change was detailed in a memo from the Ministry of Education sent to school board officials on Thursday, the same day the province announced that it was delaying the return to in-person classes for two days – from Jan. 3 to Jan. 5.

"Given recent changes to case and contact management by the Ministry of Health and OCMOH (Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health), the ministry will suspend reporting of COVID-19 cases in schools," the memo obtained by CP24 read.

While case counts will no longer be posted, the ministry said it will continue to report school and child-care closures due to COVID-19.

"Further information will be shared shortly with school boards on reporting expectations of absences in schools and school closures due to COVID-19, in conjunction with educational and pediatric leaders," the memo read.

The new policy was not part of Thursday's back-to-school announcement made by Ontario's chief medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore.

In a letter to parents Friday, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) confirmed that the Ministry of Education "will no longer be collecting COVID-19 case numbers from school boards."

"The TDSB, which is committed to keeping families as informed as possible, is currently reviewing how reporting and notification may happen moving forward."

Ontario has been reporting COVID-19 cases in schools for the last 18 months. Between Aug. 2 and Dec. 24 of 2021, 12,062 COVID-19 school-related cases were reported, according to the provincial reporting website. Of those, 10,582 infections were among students.

Also, in the memo, the ministry said the dismissal classes and cohorts may no longer be needed even after a positive case is confirmed. Students and staff experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 or are confirmed cases are still expected to self-isolate regardless of vaccination status.

The ministry also laid out in the memo steps on how school boards can minimize school closures due to operational reasons related to "high rates of expected absenteeism" among staff.

One of the steps is allowing school boards to "combine classes and assign students to different classes to ensure supervision."

Schools can also introduce "rotating, planned remote learning days for schools if needed, up to one day per week," the memo read.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce defended his government's approach earlier on Friday, saying they have put an increased focus on improved ventilation and masking.

"Schools are literally some of the safest places in our community because we have distancing, cohorting, screening at the front-end quality masking, ventilation improvements and access to take home PCR tests for symptomatic students and staff. It's going to make a difference and I appreciate that we all have an angst about the Omicron variant because we all want this to be behind us. But by increasing our immunization efforts, by wearing quality masks and by continuing to be vigilant as a society, I think we will get through the next few weeks," he said in an interview with CP24.

"They will be tough, but it's worth the effort to get our kids in school, to keep them safe and to keep them learning."

The Opposition called the move "terrifying" and slammed Premier Doug Ford for "trying to hide the damage, and the danger of his choices."

"Ford's attempt to cover up COVID numbers in schools is going to hurt kids, families, teachers and education workers," NDP Education critic Marit Stiles said in a statement.

"Parents have to decide to send their kids to school not knowing if the school has a high number of COVID cases. If we can't track where the virus is, we can't fight it. Ford is treating students and staff like pawns in his attempt to hide rising COVID numbers."

- with files from Chris Fox and Chris Herhalt

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The pandemic has had devastating impacts on learning. What will it take to help students catch up?

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, megan kuhfeld , megan kuhfeld senior research scientist - nwea @megankuhfeld jim soland , jim soland assistant professor, school of education and human development - university of virginia, affiliated research fellow - nwea @jsoland karyn lewis , and karyn lewis director, center for school and student progress - nwea @karynlew emily morton emily morton research scientist - nwea @emily_r_morton.

March 3, 2022

As we reach the two-year mark of the initial wave of pandemic-induced school shutdowns, academic normalcy remains out of reach for many students, educators, and parents. In addition to surging COVID-19 cases at the end of 2021, schools have faced severe staff shortages , high rates of absenteeism and quarantines , and rolling school closures . Furthermore, students and educators continue to struggle with mental health challenges , higher rates of violence and misbehavior , and concerns about lost instructional time .

As we outline in our new research study released in January, the cumulative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ academic achievement has been large. We tracked changes in math and reading test scores across the first two years of the pandemic using data from 5.4 million U.S. students in grades 3-8. We focused on test scores from immediately before the pandemic (fall 2019), following the initial onset (fall 2020), and more than one year into pandemic disruptions (fall 2021).

Average fall 2021 math test scores in grades 3-8 were 0.20-0.27 standard deviations (SDs) lower relative to same-grade peers in fall 2019, while reading test scores were 0.09-0.18 SDs lower. This is a sizable drop. For context, the math drops are significantly larger than estimated impacts from other large-scale school disruptions, such as after Hurricane Katrina—math scores dropped 0.17 SDs in one year for New Orleans evacuees .

Even more concerning, test-score gaps between students in low-poverty and high-poverty elementary schools grew by approximately 20% in math (corresponding to 0.20 SDs) and 15% in reading (0.13 SDs), primarily during the 2020-21 school year. Further, achievement tended to drop more between fall 2020 and 2021 than between fall 2019 and 2020 (both overall and differentially by school poverty), indicating that disruptions to learning have continued to negatively impact students well past the initial hits following the spring 2020 school closures.

These numbers are alarming and potentially demoralizing, especially given the heroic efforts of students to learn and educators to teach in incredibly trying times. From our perspective, these test-score drops in no way indicate that these students represent a “ lost generation ” or that we should give up hope. Most of us have never lived through a pandemic, and there is so much we don’t know about students’ capacity for resiliency in these circumstances and what a timeline for recovery will look like. Nor are we suggesting that teachers are somehow at fault given the achievement drops that occurred between 2020 and 2021; rather, educators had difficult jobs before the pandemic, and now are contending with huge new challenges, many outside their control.

Clearly, however, there’s work to do. School districts and states are currently making important decisions about which interventions and strategies to implement to mitigate the learning declines during the last two years. Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) investments from the American Rescue Plan provided nearly $200 billion to public schools to spend on COVID-19-related needs. Of that sum, $22 billion is dedicated specifically to addressing learning loss using “evidence-based interventions” focused on the “ disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underrepresented student subgroups. ” Reviews of district and state spending plans (see Future Ed , EduRecoveryHub , and RAND’s American School District Panel for more details) indicate that districts are spending their ESSER dollars designated for academic recovery on a wide variety of strategies, with summer learning, tutoring, after-school programs, and extended school-day and school-year initiatives rising to the top.

Comparing the negative impacts from learning disruptions to the positive impacts from interventions

To help contextualize the magnitude of the impacts of COVID-19, we situate test-score drops during the pandemic relative to the test-score gains associated with common interventions being employed by districts as part of pandemic recovery efforts. If we assume that such interventions will continue to be as successful in a COVID-19 school environment, can we expect that these strategies will be effective enough to help students catch up? To answer this question, we draw from recent reviews of research on high-dosage tutoring , summer learning programs , reductions in class size , and extending the school day (specifically for literacy instruction) . We report effect sizes for each intervention specific to a grade span and subject wherever possible (e.g., tutoring has been found to have larger effects in elementary math than in reading).

Figure 1 shows the standardized drops in math test scores between students testing in fall 2019 and fall 2021 (separately by elementary and middle school grades) relative to the average effect size of various educational interventions. The average effect size for math tutoring matches or exceeds the average COVID-19 score drop in math. Research on tutoring indicates that it often works best in younger grades, and when provided by a teacher rather than, say, a parent. Further, some of the tutoring programs that produce the biggest effects can be quite intensive (and likely expensive), including having full-time tutors supporting all students (not just those needing remediation) in one-on-one settings during the school day. Meanwhile, the average effect of reducing class size is negative but not significant, with high variability in the impact across different studies. Summer programs in math have been found to be effective (average effect size of .10 SDs), though these programs in isolation likely would not eliminate the COVID-19 test-score drops.

Figure 1: Math COVID-19 test-score drops compared to the effect sizes of various educational interventions

Source: COVID-19 score drops are pulled from Kuhfeld et al. (2022) Table 5; reduction-in-class-size results are from pg. 10 of Figles et al. (2018) Table 2; summer program results are pulled from Lynch et al (2021) Table 2; and tutoring estimates are pulled from Nictow et al (2020) Table 3B. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are shown with vertical lines on each bar.

Notes: Kuhfeld et al. and Nictow et al. reported effect sizes separately by grade span; Figles et al. and Lynch et al. report an overall effect size across elementary and middle grades. We were unable to find a rigorous study that reported effect sizes for extending the school day/year on math performance. Nictow et al. and Kraft & Falken (2021) also note large variations in tutoring effects depending on the type of tutor, with larger effects for teacher and paraprofessional tutoring programs than for nonprofessional and parent tutoring. Class-size reductions included in the Figles meta-analysis ranged from a minimum of one to minimum of eight students per class.

Figure 2 displays a similar comparison using effect sizes from reading interventions. The average effect of tutoring programs on reading achievement is larger than the effects found for the other interventions, though summer reading programs and class size reduction both produced average effect sizes in the ballpark of the COVID-19 reading score drops.

Figure 2: Reading COVID-19 test-score drops compared to the effect sizes of various educational interventions

Source: COVID-19 score drops are pulled from Kuhfeld et al. (2022) Table 5; extended-school-day results are from Figlio et al. (2018) Table 2; reduction-in-class-size results are from pg. 10 of Figles et al. (2018) ; summer program results are pulled from Kim & Quinn (2013) Table 3; and tutoring estimates are pulled from Nictow et al (2020) Table 3B. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are shown with vertical lines on each bar.

Notes: While Kuhfeld et al. and Nictow et al. reported effect sizes separately by grade span, Figlio et al. and Kim & Quinn report an overall effect size across elementary and middle grades. Class-size reductions included in the Figles meta-analysis ranged from a minimum of one to minimum of eight students per class.

There are some limitations of drawing on research conducted prior to the pandemic to understand our ability to address the COVID-19 test-score drops. First, these studies were conducted under conditions that are very different from what schools currently face, and it is an open question whether the effectiveness of these interventions during the pandemic will be as consistent as they were before the pandemic. Second, we have little evidence and guidance about the efficacy of these interventions at the unprecedented scale that they are now being considered. For example, many school districts are expanding summer learning programs, but school districts have struggled to find staff interested in teaching summer school to meet the increased demand. Finally, given the widening test-score gaps between low- and high-poverty schools, it’s uncertain whether these interventions can actually combat the range of new challenges educators are facing in order to narrow these gaps. That is, students could catch up overall, yet the pandemic might still have lasting, negative effects on educational equality in this country.

Given that the current initiatives are unlikely to be implemented consistently across (and sometimes within) districts, timely feedback on the effects of initiatives and any needed adjustments will be crucial to districts’ success. The Road to COVID Recovery project and the National Student Support Accelerator are two such large-scale evaluation studies that aim to produce this type of evidence while providing resources for districts to track and evaluate their own programming. Additionally, a growing number of resources have been produced with recommendations on how to best implement recovery programs, including scaling up tutoring , summer learning programs , and expanded learning time .

Ultimately, there is much work to be done, and the challenges for students, educators, and parents are considerable. But this may be a moment when decades of educational reform, intervention, and research pay off. Relying on what we have learned could show the way forward.

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Canada: Ontario Ministry Of Education Releases Operational Guidance For Managing COVID-19 Cases

The Ontario Ministry of Education has issued important "operational guidance" that provides further detail regarding managing COVID-19 cases in schools.

Operational guidance: COVID-19 management in schools (the Guide) is a supplement to the more general guidance issued by the Ministry in July. It sets out uniform advice for elementary and secondary schools and includes a playbook for dealing with anticipated events.

Although the Guide includes some welcome direction, boards should beware that parts of it are inconsistent with the province's current self-isolation model. The Guide is, therefore, not a substitute for boards' own careful forethought and planning.

Below, we set out what the Guide says about reporting, health unit engagement, responding to an illness in the school and returning to school.

Reporting framework

The Guide speaks to a new daily reporting requirement and the existing duty to report suspected cases.

Schools are to make daily reports of cases "associated with the school" and absenteeism though a reporting tool. These reports will go to both the Ministry and local public health unit for analysis and, when appropriate, follow-up.

Principals have a duty to report suspected COVID-19 cases in students to the local public health unit - i.e. , a duty to report upon forming a belief that a student may have contracted COVID-19. The Guide calls attention to this duty, though also warns principals not to simply report "all instances of ill individuals."

In advance of an outbreak, the Guide encourages principals to consult with their public health units about attendance concerns, managing individuals with symptoms and other matters.

Health unit engagement

Health units are to engage with schools and school boards based on daily and suspected case reports, with engagement triggered by the existence of an outbreak. The Guide defines an outbreak as:

"..two or more lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in students and/or staff in a school with an epidemiological link, within a 14-day period, where at least one case could have reasonably acquired their infection in the school (including transportation and before or after school care)."

Health units are empowered to make orders to address outbreaks, though the Guide speaks to a more collaborative approach. It says, "the public health unit will assist in determining which cohort(s) may be sent home or if a partial or full school closure is required based on the scope of the outbreak."

The school role in the event of an outbreak is straightforward. It is to provide public health with information (including class and cohort lists), communicate with community members based on public health direction and otherwise follow public health direction.

Response to illness in schools

The Guide says that schools should ask individuals who become ill during school hours to wait in an isolated room or area while awaiting pickup. School personnel in contact with such individuals should keep as much physical distance as possible and wear a surgical mask and eye protection. Afterwards, schools should sanitize as soon as reasonably possible.

The Guide's direction on the next step is both vague and problematic. According to the Guide, schools are to "inform necessary stakeholders within the school community while maintaining confidentiality of the ill individual" but need not take any steps to send potential close contacts home. It says:

"Those who are identified as potential close contacts should remain cohorted. The local PHU will provide any further direction on testing and isolation of these contacts, if necessary. In most instances, testing and isolation would only be recommended for contacts of a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis."

This guidance is difficult to reconcile with the Ontario self-isolation model, which would invite boards to immediately send home close contacts of symptomatic individuals rather than wait up to several days for a diagnosis or test result. Moreover, the Guide includes no direction about how to deal with students, teachers and visitors who have been in a school and, soon after, become symptomatic.

School boards should decide now whether to follow this particular part of the Guide or engage in a more protective approach aligned with the Ontario model. This protective approach also calls for a response to absences by teachers and students who become symptomatic (and not simply illness that arise in schools).

Boards may wish to ask teachers and students to report such absences so they can assess the probability of in-school exposure and the need to communicate with students and parents about in-school exposure even before the case is "confirmed." As the Guide suggests, schools will ordinarily be able to engage in such communications without revealing the identity of symptomatic individuals.

Return to school

The Guide gives the following direction regarding return to school:

• Individuals who had a COVID-19 test because they were showing symptoms but tested negative should not return to school until at least 24 hours after their symptoms have resolved.
• Where a student or staff member tests positive for COVID-19, the local public health unit will be in contact with the school to provide further direction on returning to school.

The Guide discourages boards from requiring medical notes and test results as a condition of return, identifying such conditions as "barriers to return to school."

Significance

While health units will no doubt be on alert to the risk of COVID-19 spread in schools this fall, they do govern themselves independently of the Ministry and the province. The Ministry's new Guide, however, may encourage the kind of support and collaboration with public health units that school boards need.

The Guide, however, fails to give good direction on how boards should respond to individuals who become symptomatic while in school or who were recently in school. The current provincial guidance on self-isolation encourages a quick reaction to potential outbreaks by requiring those who have been in close physical contact with symptomatic individuals to self-isolate promptly.

In light of the provincial model, school boards should be cautious in following the Guide, which invites waiting a "confirmed case" and public health intervention before taking steps to keep close physical contacts of the potential COVID-19 infected individual out of schools.

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COVID-19–Related School Closures and Learning Modality Changes — United States, August 1–September 17, 2021

Weekly / October 1, 2021 / 70(39);1374–1376

On September 24, 2021, this report was posted online as an MMWR Early Release.

Sharyn E. Parks, PhD 1 ; Nicole Zviedrite, MPH 1 ; Samantha E. Budzyn, MPH 1 ,2 ; Mark J. Panaggio, PhD 3 ; Emma Raible 3 ; Marc Papazian 4 ; Jake Magid, MEng 4 ; Faruque Ahmed, PhD 1 ; Amra Uzicanin, MD 1 ; Lisa C. Barrios, DrPH 1 ( View author affiliations )

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• PDF pdf icon [154K]

Beginning in January 2021, the U.S. government prioritized ensuring continuity of learning for all students during the COVID-19 pandemic ( 1 ). To estimate the extent of COVID-19–associated school disruptions, CDC and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory used a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) ( 2 ) statistical approach to estimate the most likely actual learning modality based on patterns observed in past data, accounting for conflicting or missing information and systematic Internet searches ( 3 ) for COVID-19–related school closures. This information was used to assess how many U.S. schools were open, and in which learning modalities, during August 1–September 17, 2021. Learning modalities included 1) full in-person learning, 2) a hybrid of in-person and remote learning, and 3) full remote learning.

Multiple data sources were combined to estimate the learning modality for public and public charter school districts in the United States using HMM; sources included Burbio,* MCH Strategic Data, † American Enterprise Institute–Return to Learn, § and state dashboards. ¶ Weekly learning modalities (full in-person, hybrid, and full remote) during August 1, 2020–July 31, 2021 were used to select the optimal weights for each reported modality in order to infer the most likely actual learning modality. The trained HMM was applied weekly during August 1–September 17, 2021. In addition to using HMM, since February 2020, CDC has also tracked district and individual public and private school closures attributed to COVID-19 and estimated the number of students and teachers affected by these closures. School closure data were obtained via daily systematic Internet searches, as described previously ( 3 ), which identified publicly announced COVID-19–related closures lasting ≥1 day. School or district closure was defined as a transition from being open to being closed for in-person instruction. Fully in-person and hybrid (i.e., latter includes both in-person and remote) learning modalities were classified as open; fully remote learning modalities (if stated as offered during closure) were classified as closed. Closure dates and reasons were recorded and linked to publicly available education data.** HMM was fitted using the Pomegranate module (version 0.14.3) for Python (version 3.7.6). COVID-SC data were imported into SAS (version 9.4; SAS Institute) for analysis. These activities were reviewed by CDC and were conducted consistent with applicable federal law and CDC policy. ††

For the week ending September 17, 2021, HMM data were available for 73% of kindergarten through grade 12 public school students in 8,700 districts nationwide and varied by state (Supplementary Figure, https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/109969 ). Among these districts, 8,343 (96%) were offering full in-person learning, 322 (4%) were offering hybrid learning, and 35 (0.4%) were offering full remote learning. The largest number of districts with full remote learning (14) were in the West Census Region, followed by the South (11). Seven Midwest and two Northeast districts offered full remote learning. During August 2–September 17, 2021, systematic Internet searches identified announcements of 248 public districtwide closures and 384 individual school closures for ≥1 day attributable to COVID-19. Closures affected 1,801 schools (1.5% of all schools), 933,913 students, and 59,846 teachers in 44 states ( Figure ). The number of closures was highest in the South.

The findings in this report are subject to at least five limitations. First, both HMM and daily Internet searches were informed by passive collection of available information obtained through school and district surveys, public-facing website pages, and media reports; therefore, they are likely not inclusive of all school districts nationwide. Second, HMM did not account for the possibility of serial errors in sources (i.e., sources that are incorrect week after week). Third, districts included in HMM were larger than those excluded, thus limiting generalizability. Fourth, HMM is based on the assumption that probabilities for subsequent weeks are determined exclusively by the modality for the current week with no change in these probabilities over time or from district to district, both of which might not always be true. The results do not speak directly to level of impact because districts and schools may have different thresholds for closure or change in modality. Finally, regional differences must be interpreted cautiously. The timing of return to school likely accounts for some regional variation in school closures because longer in-session time increases opportunities for COVID-19 cases to appear in schools. Many districts in the South returned to school in early August compared with late August or early September return dates in other regions ( 4 ).

Federal public health and education agencies are using HMM model information and systematic Internet searches to identify districts and schools most affected by COVID-19–related disruptions. Examination of prevention activities in those with and without disruption can suggest modifications to COVID-19 prevention activities. CDC is currently making findings from these activities available to state and local public health and education agencies.

Most (96%) public and private schools have remained open for full in-person learning. However, an estimated 1,800 schools have had school closures attributable to COVID-19 outbreaks, affecting the education and well-being of 933,000 students. To prevent COVID-19 outbreaks in schools, CDC recommends multicomponent prevention strategies, including vaccination, universal indoor masking, screening testing, and physical distancing ( 5 ).

Corresponding author: Sharyn E. Parks, [email protected] .

1 CDC COVID-19 Response Team; 2 Booz Allen Hamilton, McLean, Virginia; 3 Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland; 4 Palantir Technologies, Denver, Colorado.

All authors have completed and submitted the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

* https://cai.burbio.com/school-opening-tracker/ external icon

† https://www.mchdata.com/covid19/schoolclosings external icon

§ https://www.returntolearntracker.net/ external icon

¶ Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.

** https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/ external icon

†† 45 C.F.R. part 46, 21 C.F.R. part 56; 42 U.S.C. Sect. 241(d); 5 U.S.C. Sect. 552a; 44 U.S.C. Sect. 3501 et seq.

• Office of the President of the United States. National strategy for the COVID-19 response and pandemic preparedness. Washington, DC: White House; 2021. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/National-Strategy-for-the-COVID-19-Response-and-Pandemic-Preparedness.pdf pdf icon external icon
• Rabiner LR. A tutorial on hidden Markov models and selected applications in speech recognition. Proc IEEE 1989;77:257–86. https://doi.org/10.1109/5.18626 external icon
• Zviedrite N, Hodis JD, Jahan F, Gao H, Uzicanin A. COVID-19–associated school closures and related efforts to sustain education and subsidized meal programs, United States, February 18–June 30, 2020. PLoS One 2021;16:e0248925. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248925 external icon PMID:34520475 external icon
• Desilver D. ‘Back to school’ means anytime from late July to after Labor Day, depending on where in the U.S. you live. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center; 2019. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/14/back-to-school-dates-u-s/ external icon
• CDC. COVID-19: guidance for COVID-19 prevention in K–12 schools. Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC; 2021. Accessed September 21, 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html

FIGURE . COVID-19–related kindergarten through grade 12 school closures, by region and state — United States, August 2–September 17, 2021

Suggested citation for this article: Parks SE, Zviedrite N, Budzyn SE, et al. COVID-19–Related School Closures and Learning Modality Changes — United States, August 1–September 17, 2021. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2021;70:1374–1376. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7039e2 external icon .

MMWR and Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report are service marks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Use of trade names and commercial sources is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. References to non-CDC sites on the Internet are provided as a service to MMWR readers and do not constitute or imply endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. CDC is not responsible for the content of pages found at these sites. URL addresses listed in MMWR were current as of the date of publication.

All HTML versions of MMWR articles are generated from final proofs through an automated process. This conversion might result in character translation or format errors in the HTML version. Users are referred to the electronic PDF version ( https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr ) and/or the original MMWR paper copy for printable versions of official text, figures, and tables.

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Unicef education covid-19 case study: malaysia – empowering teachers to deliver blended learning after school reopening, in malaysia, to keep children learning, the ministry of education launched an online teaching and learning platform nationwide..

In Malaysia, schools were closed on 18 March 2020, disrupting learning for five million students. To keep children learning, the Ministry of Education launched an  online teaching and learning platform  nationwide. The national platform has kept 3 million children learning during school closures and will continue to play an important role after gradual school reopening starting 24 June 2020 as part of the country’s approach of blending face-to-face and online learning.

A critical part of the platform is the  Komuniti Guru Digital Learning  or Teacher Digital Learning Community, established with support from UNICEF, that aims to equip teachers with the skills and knowledge required to deliver distance classes effectively and efficiently through a five-module online teacher training course that includes notes, video tutorials, and quizzes on how to plan, build and launch digital content for remote teaching and learning. To date, around 2,400 teachers from over 1,600 schools all over the country have participated in the online teacher training.

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Related topics, more to explore, unicef education covid-19 case study: china.

UNICEF supported the reopening efforts with a comprehensive ‘Safe School’ communication campaign developed in close collaboration with the MoE.

RTA of UNICEF COVID-19 response in the East Asia and Pacific

The objective of this EAP RTA was to inform a forward-looking reflection on the implementation of CO response to COVID-19.

COVID-19 Evaluation Learning Week | October 2021

The Week is to highlight evaluative evidence that has examined the impacts of COVID-19 on children and their communities.

GDC: Gender Equality and Girls' Education during COVID-19

Watch the webinar recording and download the presentations on how COVID-19 has impacted gender equality and girls' education | 23 March 2021.

How the education sector should respond to COVID-19, according to these leading experts

1. Prioritize keeping schools open. Image:  REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

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Jaime saavedra, robert jenkins.

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Stay up to date:.

• The pandemic has impacted every area of the lives of every person around the globe, and education has been hit by its worst crisis in a century.
• Policymakers in countries around the world are trying to respond.
• The Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP) provides recommendations for how to tackle the global learning crisis in the wake of COVID-19.

The arrival and scale of the Covid-19 pandemic caught everyone off guard; the pandemic, and its reverberating impacts, are far from over. The pandemic has impacted every area of the lives of every person around the globe, and education has been hit by its worst crisis in a century. In some countries, policy makers have been doing their best to respond to an unprecedented and fast-moving situation; in others, they have yet to grasp the magnitude of this monumental shock. Evidence on the effectiveness and impact of various policy and programmatic responses has been in short supply, in part because few countries were prepared. But recovering learning is now a gigantic task in need of urgent action.

The Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP), an independent multidisciplinary panel of leading global education experts convened by our organizations, is helping to fill this evidence gap. Their new report, Prioritizing Learning During Covid-19 , summarizes the best evidence available, including on what has worked so far during the pandemic, and provides recommendations for how to tackle the global learning crisis in the wake of Covid-19. Here, we discuss our takeaways from the Panel’s main recommendations.

1. Prioritize keeping schools and preschools fully open

Schools must be reopened and stay open. The large educational, economic, social, and mental health costs of school closures suggest full or partial school closure should be a last resort in governments’ Covid-19 mitigation strategies. These costs fall heavily on the less well-off and girls, including through increased risk of teen pregnancy. The impacts of school closures will last longer than disruptions in many other sectors since losses in human capital reduce income and productivity throughout a child’s life. Schools not only provide spaces for learning, but also deliver a range of critical services for students, including school meals, psychosocial support, and protection. Children need to be supported in their return to school and provided comprehensive supports that not only ensure their learning, but also their wellbeing. The priority should be keeping preschools, primary, and secondary schools fully open over keeping non-education sectors open, where disruptions cause shorter-term losses.

2. Reduce transmission in schools by prioritizing teachers for the Covid-19 vaccination, providing, and using masks where appropriate, and improving ventilation

The GEEAP cites ventilation and masking as key pandemic mitigation measures and calls for prioritizing teachers for vaccination. In Bangladesh, a randomized evaluation found that even imperfect masking substantially reduced community transmission (a 30-percentage-point increase in mask-wearing reduced transmission by 11% for surgical masks and 5% for the cloth masks often used in schools).

3. Adjust instruction to reflect the new reality and focus on important foundational skills

As children come back to school, curricula will need to be adjusted and aligned across the system to focus on foundational skills that children have missed. It will be too difficult for teachers to cover all the curricula as if children were just returning from a short break rather than major disruption to their schooling. Catch-up classes will be critical to meet children at their learning level rather than their curriculum grade. A series of randomized evaluations in India show that adjusting instruction to a child’s level can rapidly improve foundational reading and math skills, even for students well behind grade level. When schools closed in Kano, Nigeria, the government leaned on the evidence-based Teaching at the Right Level approach to help pupils, both during and after school closures.

4. Provide additional instructional support to teachers

Teachers need support to continue improving their teaching skills, for example through structured pedagogy and simple teaching guides, to provide effective learning to their students as they return. They may also need increased human support to accommodate students’ varying learning levels and needs. In South Africa , youth who volunteered as teaching assistants dramatically increased reading and math skills.

5. Leverage technology that is fit to country context

Remote education was not available to most students in low- and middle-income countries and most remote learning solutions were an inadequate substitute for in-person learning. Low-tech and no-tech solutions have been effective in many areas. But eventually, technology will have the potential to be an effective support in all education systems. In Brazil, text messages sent to students reduced dropout rates by 26% during the pandemic. In Bangladesh, mentoring and home-schooling support provided by tutors through mobile phones had large impacts on learning outcomes.

Have you read?

Covid-19 has locked children out of their education with girls at highest risk, the covid-19 pandemic has changed education forever. this is how , covid-19 put 1.6 billion children out of school. here's how to upgrade education post-pandemic, 6. foster parental engagement.

Studies prior to the pandemic demonstrate how some parental involvement approaches can increase children’s learning at low cost to the parent. These include direct communication from schools to parents, engaging more with young children in educational activities, reading books to a child (where the parent is literate), and sharing simple exercises for the parent to use with their child by text or phone call. Parents and caregivers have been engaged in education in an unprecedented way, and their expanded role should be encouraged as schools reopen.

In Costa Rica , text messages to parents that encouraged them to support their children’s learning at home led to significant cognitive gains during the pandemic. These results reinforce findings from a review in non-Covid-19 settings, which revealed that interventions involving parents via phones, texts and emails have been successful as long as communications are two-way, personalised, and positive.

Looking forward

Many countries are already responding to the pandemic in line with the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel’s recommendations. The learning crisis – now on the brink of becoming a catastrophe – is still underestimated in many countries and not sufficiently prioritized despite its potential to become the most serious and long-lasting impact of the pandemic. Beyond adopting evidence-based policies, we need to continue to measure the extent of the challenges through better data that will help decision-makers to target solutions, especially to the most marginalized learners. The urgency of the challenge should provide the political window of opportunity to implement critical education reforms that ensure all children receive the education and holistic support they need and deserve.

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Reduced in-person learning in COVID-19 widens student achievement gaps in schools

Chol-kyun shin.

1 Division of Liberal Studies, Kangwon National University, 1, Kangwondaehak-gil, Room 403-1, Chuncheon-si, Gangwon 24341 South Korea

Youngeun An

2 Seoul Educational Research & Information Institute, 46, Sopa-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul, 04636 South Korea

Soon-young Oh

3 Department of Educational Administration, Michigan State University, 620 Farm Lane Room. 413, East Lansing, MI 48824 USA

This study aims to examine the impact of reduced in-person learning during COVID-19 on students’ academic achievement gaps focusing on rural–urban and in-school disparities. To this end, first, we investigated the regional disparity of student performance between Seoul and Gangwon, representative areas of urban and rural regions in South Korea, using t test analysis. Second, we conducted a regression analysis to analyze how the number of in-school days is associated with the student performance gap by controlling the regions. Our findings from the two analyses can be summarized as follows: First, we observed a difference in patterns between the two regions. In Seoul, student performance was polarized at the two ends of the grade spectrum, whereas in Gangwon Province, achievement declined overall between pre- and post-COVID-19. Second, in the case of Seoul, the proportion of mid-range achievement students decreased after COVID-19, whereas in Gangwon Province, COVID-19 did not have a significant effect on students’ B, C, and D grades. Third, regardless of region, more in-person learning was associated with a higher portion of mid-range grades. Based on the findings, we suggested several policy implementations to cope with student performance gaps, which can facilitate the governmental response to nationwide crises that may emerge in the future.

Introduction

It has been years since COVID-19 struck the world, and it significantly damaged education (Reimers & Schleicher, 2020 ). According to UNESCO ( 2020 ), 172 countries shut down schools entirely by April 2020, and about 148.47 million students, 84.8% of all students in the world, were affected (Jang et al., 2020 ). In addition, manifestations of inequality and financial austerity increased throughout the pandemic (Hargreaves, 2020 ), including in South Korea, where schools shifted to offering combined online and in-person classes to cope with the unprecedented situation (Ministry of Education, 2020a , 2020b , 2020c ). These disruptions to school operations and student learning have led to concerns about the widening education gap in Korea.

Studies on the effects of COVID-19 on students’ academic achievement and gap have gained much attention in recent years. In France and Italy, students’ grades fell by 5% to 8% after schools were completely closed, but one study showed that students who received remote education received 1 to 2% lower grades (Champeaux et al., 2020 ). The negative impacts of the COVID-19 school closures were concentrated among socially and economically vulnerable groups (Maldonado & De Witte, 2022 ).

In Korea, Baek and Jung ( 2021 ), Lee et al. ( 2020 ), and Lim et al. ( 2020 ) reported deepening academic gaps related to COVID-19. Additionally, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, the Busan Metropolitan Office of Education, and Private Education-free World also revealed education gaps among students (Private Education-free World, 2021 , April 26; Pusan National University, 2020 ; Seoul Education Policy Research Institute, 2021 ). Researchers from countries such as Germany, Belgium, and Italy have found that COVID-19 reduced academic achievement and increased academic gaps among students (Contini et al., 2021 ; Maldonado & De Witte, 2022 ; Schult et al., 2022 ). Indeed, researchers have generally reported increasingly polarized results of COVID-19 on students’ educations.

For instance, in Asia, studies from China and Indonesia showed that students in rural areas were more negatively affected than those in urban areas after school closures (Cai et al., 2020 ; Pasani et al., 2021 ), but the authors of these studies focused on online accessibility and did not suggest differences in accordance with in-person learning or overall trends. As such, existing research on education achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic lacks exploration of how students’ education backgrounds differed by region and how in-person learning affected their subsequent education. Meanwhile, Shin et al. ( 2021 ) and Kim et al., ( 2022 , November 30) confirmed the importance of face-to-face learning. Shin et al. ( 2021 ) analyzed schools in Gangwon Province, Korea, and found that schools with more school days in their academic year had smaller achievement gaps among students. Similarly, Kim et al. ( 2022 , November 30) showed that the gap between the top-tier and the lower-tier performing students was wider in schools that offered less in-person learning.

Our methodology for this current study differs from that of the aforementioned studies in several significant ways. Whereas previous researchers did not confirm direct effects of in-person learning (Shin et al., 2021 ) or focused only on high school students’ academic achievement data (Kim et al., 2022 , November 30), we aimed with our empirical study to reveal the education gaps as they existed before and after COVID-19, in particular the impacts of in-person learning and the proportions of mid-range grades in middle schools in the capital city and rural areas. Korea is a valuable country for examining the impacts of COVID-19 on education because, before the pandemic, Korea had a relatively minor achievement gap compared with other Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, attributed to greater enthusiasm for higher education (OECD, 2013 ; Seth, 2002 ). With the onset of the pandemic, Korea unexpectedly experienced a widening education gap despite its successful transition to online classes owing to its great IT infrastructure (GSMA, 2020 ).

Given these phenomena, it is meaningful to examine exactly how the education gap in Korea changed due to COVID-19. To reach this goal, we explored the disparate impacts of COVID-19 between metropolitan and rural areas by comparing the achievement scores of middle school students in two regional contexts, Seoul and Gangwon Province in South Korea. To further examine the context-independent impact of the pandemic, we also conducted how the reduced in-person school days are associated with student achievement. The comparative analysis of these different education contexts before and after COVID-19 can hint at how the pandemic impacted regional gaps in education in rural and urban areas in general, and how the reduced in-person learning led to a greater disparity of in-school student achievements regardless of contexts.

For this study, we focused on the following research questions: (1) How did the distribution of academic achievement in schools in urban and rural areas change between pre- and post-COVID-19? (2) How did the proportions of mid-range students in urban and rural schools change between pre- and post-COVID-19? (3) During COVID-19, how did in-person learning affect mid-range students’ achievement?

Theoretical background

Achievement gap.

Achievement gaps are defined as discrepancies in academic performance between different student groups (Ansell, 2011 July 7). According to Reardon et al. ( 2013 ), proficiency, average score, and distribution gaps can each characterize achievement gaps. Proficiency gaps relate to differences between groups in the scores on achievement standards; average score gaps refer specifically to between-group differences in mean test scores; and distribution gaps refer to the relative differences between two groups’ test scores (Reardon et al., 2013 ).

In this study, we analyzed student achievement at the school level rather than at the individual level, concentrating on the distribution gaps in each school, given that the achievement gaps increased significantly during and after the pandemic (Baek & Jung, 2021 ). We specifically examined the distributions of each school’s achievement scores to examine how the scores changed.

Achievement gaps in the COVID era

After nearly 3 years, COVID-19 has caused unprecedented disruptions to academic schedules worldwide. According to UNESCO ( 2021 , September 16), schools around the world have been closed for an average of 18 weeks since the beginning of the pandemic. Researchers and others anticipated that these closures would negatively affect students’ academic performance and widen achievement gaps. The majority of empirical research has found that COVID-19 school closures increased achievement gaps, in particular between underprivileged students and their more privileged classmates in terms of socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, and region (e.g., Cai et al., 2020 ; Davis et al., 2020 ; Engzell et al., 2021 ; Maldonado & De Witte, 2022 ; Reza, 2020 ).

In the Netherlands, for instance, Engzell et al. ( 2021 ) observed learning losses in math, spelling, and reading progress among primary students following the school closures compared with before; specifically, losses were up to 60% greater among children from less-educated homes. Along the same lines, researchers identified serious learning losses among all students in their standardized test scores for all tested subjects following the school shutdowns in Belgium, and schools with larger numbers of disadvantaged students experienced greater learning losses (Maldonado & De Witte, 2022 ). In an analysis of two household surveys conducted in 2019 and 2021 in reading and math in Mexico, the losses that occurred after the school lockdowns were considerably greater for students of lower socioeconomic status (Hevia et al., 2022 ). In fact, across the literature, findings consistently suggest positive impacts of regular K-12 school attendance on student performance (Alexander et al., 2007 ; Caldas, 1993 ; Downey et al., 2004 ; Marcotte, 2007 ).

Widening achievement gaps are closely related to resource access issues for online classes. For example, Davis et al. ( 2020 ) found that while some public school districts in the United States were able to provide education via video platforms, schools in lower-income districts could not afford to do so. As a result, social and racial inequities, particularly between Black and white students, were exacerbated (Davis et al., 2020 ). Similarly, the achievement gap between middle- and working-class students increased in the United Kingdom in part because privileged students received twice as many online lessons (Al-Jubori, 2021 ). Furthermore, students in rural areas were more negatively affected by school closures, in particular in China (Cai et al., 2020 ) and Indonesia (Pasani et al., 2021 ). According to the International Telecommunication Union ( 2022 ), rural residents of developing countries are less likely to have internet access, unlike their counterparts in urban areas (Hossain, 2021 ).

This achievement gap between urban and rural areas was acknowledged even before the pandemic. For example, Li ( 2016 ) reported that insufficient support, such as low-expertise teachers and a lack of funding, negatively influenced rural–urban inequalities in basic education in China. In Korea, Park ( 2012 ) analyzed the academic gaps between urban and rural areas during 2005–2007 and identified achievement gaps related to socioeconomic background and education support. However, the author also found that supportive school climates in rural areas, such as eup (towns) and myeon (townships), reduced the academic gaps between urban and rural areas.

Zamora and Dorado ( 2015 ), meanwhile, found that education inequalities between urban and rural areas have been improving over time according to education Gini coefficients for urban and rural areas. In response to this problem, Kirdar et al. ( 2016 ) found that as Turkey’s compulsory schooling was extended, the years of schooling completed by age 17 increased by 1.5 years for rural women; additionally, the urban–rural gap in years of schooling completed by age 17 fell by 0.5 years for men and by 0.7 to 0.8 years for women (Kirdar et al., 2016 ). These results suggest that increased in-person learning could narrow education gaps between urban and rural areas.

Taking the above findings together, it appears evident that school lockdowns during the pandemic exacerbated achievement gaps related to access to online learning. Low-income households in rural areas and among racially minoritized communities systematically lacked the digital resources to support online education, mainly due to a systemic lack of digital resources and accessibility. Irrespective of these inequalities, governments worldwide responded to the pandemic in a variety of ways, including increasing in-person learning (Kirdar et al., 2016 ) and implementing small-scale education (Kim & Kitazawa, 2021 ) in attempts to diminish achievement gaps.

Korean educational contexts during the pandemic

When the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the Ministry of Education in Korea delayed the spring 2020 school semester to allow for setting up online classroom environments; when the spread had slowed sufficiently later in the year, schools resumed in-person classes. However, there was a surge of widespread confirmed cases again in the summer of 2021, which led to the government’s strengthening social distancing policy, including resuming online learning in metropolitan Seoul. By November, school guidelines had been prepared, regional academic management plans were announced, and schools nationwide shifted to a hybrid class format (Ministry of Education, 2020a , 2020b , 2020c ).

To ensure that remote classes were conducted smoothly, Korea’s Ministry of Education ( 2020a , 2020b , 2020c ) established the Remote Education Preparation and Inspection Team as part of the New Semester’s School Opening Preparation Promotion Group, with the vice minister in charge. Additionally, the government supported remote education systems such as e-learning centers, online classes in the Educational Broadcasting System (EBS), and remote education pilot schools (Ministry of Education, 2020a , 2020b , 2020c , March 31). The Ministry of Education also attempted to improve all students’ access to classroom technology, for instance, with a project to lend smart devices to low-income families and cover a certain amount of data usage fees so that students could participate in online learning (Ministry of Education, 2020a , 2020b , 2020c , April 1).

However, researchers also identified differences not only regarding physical home environments but also regarding support from guardians according to household socioeconomic level (Lee, 2021 ), and the pandemic widened the achievement gaps among these groups. Specifically, the Ministry of Education ( 2020a , 2020b , 2020c ) reported lower scores among middle-schoolers in all subjects in 2020 compared with 2019. Separately, Jung and An ( 2021 ) and Pusan National University ( 2020 ) reported widening gaps between high- and low-achieving students and a decrease in the proportion of mid-range students. However, in Gangwon Province, which is far more rural, overall academic attainment decreased because of COVID-19 (Shin et al., 2021 ). These findings suggest the need for a comparative study addressing the trends in the achievement gaps between urban and rural areas and presenting policy and practical implications.

Analysis target

This study primarily collected data on final grades for all middle schools (grades 7–9) in the Seoul area and Gangwon Province using the Ministry of Education’s (n.d.) data to analyze the education gaps among the middle schools in these geographic areas before and after COVID-19 and the association between students’ performance and the degree of in-person learning. We collected the data through the open data platform for school education ( www.schoolinfo.go.kr ) from November 5 to December 5, 2022, and the students were assigned final grades (A, B, C, D, E) based on the sum of summative and formative evaluation scores calculated for each school as a unit of analysis. Grades are calculated using a fixed grading scale: A = 90 points or higher, B = 80–89 points, C = 70–79 points, D = 60–69 points, or E = below 60 points.

We chose Seoul and Gangwon Province as the analysis targets because of the stark differences in their demographics. Seoul is a representative urban area in Korea, with the highest national proportion of large city-level middle schools (12%) as of April 1, 2020 (Ministry of Education & Korean Educational Development Institute, 2020 ). In contrast, Gangwon Province is suitable for measuring achievement gaps before and after the pandemic based on the degree of in-person learning and the region size because there are many small schools there, unlike in Seoul, and there is a relatively low incidence rate of coronavirus per 100,000 population (Ministry of Health and Welfare, n.d.). Within this context, we compared these two regions to determine whether COVID-19 widened education gaps.

For this study, we collected the achievement data for all middle schools in Seoul and Gangwon Province for all 3 years between 2018 and 2020. We excluded nontraditional middle schools that had been conducting remote or distance schooling before COVID-19 because they do not use the same curriculum. The resulting data set consisted of 382 schools in Seoul and 157 schools in Gangwon Province. Specifically, we utilized only the second-semester data of 8th grade middle school students. The reason for selecting the second year (8th grade) was that the Freedom school year program ( jayu hagnyeonje or 자유학년제 ) was implemented for the first year of middle school (7th grade). The curriculum was designed to develop students’ talents and aptitudes through classroom participation, in contrast with the achievement-focused, competitive curriculum that was implemented starting in the second year of middle school (8th grade) (Ministry of Education, 2017 , September 12). Due to those curriculums, there was no first-year achievement data, and the third year of middle school was linked to high school admission, both of which were excluded in the analysis so as not to complicate the process for comparison.

We used data from only the second (fall) semester of each year from 2018 to 2020 to allow for summative evaluations. COVID-19 required schools to replace summative evaluations with formative, performance-based ones, given that they had not yet prepared online curricula by early 2020. As the academic achievement results between pre- and post-COVID were more comparable, we excluded the first-semester data and used only second-semester data. The second-semester data allowed us to examine the impacts of the differences between the degrees of in-person learning per semester that might have played a role in the cumulative education gaps associated with the coronavirus.

Analysis method

We ran descriptive statistics on all the dependent and independent variables in our data set. The main inferential analysis methods were t test and regression analysis. In the case of academic achievement in school records, it is difficult to make one-to-one comparisons of grades across schools because each school’s evaluation tools are different. Although there is no national standardized test, we assumed for this study that students’ grades and performance within each school remained relatively consistent across school years. Because of the differences that exist between schools, we analyzed the changes in the patterns of education gaps in schools based on the amount of change in the proportion for each letter grade in the same school. We calculated the mid-range proportion (grades B–D) index to reveal whether there were differences in the changes in the mid-range proportion by school between pre- and post-COVID-19. We used corresponding-sample t tests to compare student achievements before and after COVID-19 for the same school to see if online learning aggravated the achievement gap.

Next, we conducted a regression analysis to investigate the impacts of in-person learning on the education gaps in schools with the region variable controlled. To this end, we used mid-range (B, C, & D) grades for math and English as the dependent variables and included the degree of in-person learning, type of school, average house price, number of hagwon (private-sector extra academic cram schools), 1 and region (Seoul = 1, Gangwon Province = 0) as independent variables.

Pre- to post-COVID-19 changes of the education gap in the distribution of academic achievement

To examine whether there were changes in the education gaps within schools pre- versus post-COVID-19 at the middle school level, we analyzed the overall changes in the distribution of academic achievement in schools in urban and rural areas during COVID-19. This analysis partially aims to investigate whether the decrease in in-person school days due to COVID-19 led to student achievement gaps. Specifically, we compared 3 years of grades (2018–2020) solely from the second semester of the second year of middle school. In the analysis results shown in Table ​ Table1, 1 , positive values (with +) indicate an increase in each proportion of the students’ grades during the given period of comparison; negative values (−) indicate a decrease during the same period.

Change of proportion of academic achievement of 8th grade students at the school-level by year

SD standard deviation

Prior to COVID-19, the proportion of A grades (hereafter As) in both Seoul and Gangwon schools increased from 2018 to 2019, and the proportion of Es decreased. However, disparate impacts of COVID-19 on the two regions were observed in the post-COVID comparison period. During this period, polarized achievement in Seoul schools was evident (As and Es increased), but there was an overall decrease across achievement levels in Gangwon Province schools. Specifically, after COVID-19, the proportions of both grades at both ends of the continuum (As and Es) became greater in Seoul schools, resulting in polarization. In the case of Gangwon Province, meanwhile, during the same period (2019–2020), which includes the arrival of COVID-19, schools generally showed a negative achievement trend, with a decreasing rate of As and increasing Es compared to the previous year.

Next, we describe changes in each subject (math and English) underlying the overall trends in each region—in the pre-COVID-19 period (2018–2019), there were more As and Bs than other grades; however, from pre- to post-COVID-19 (2019–2020), students earned more As and Es in math and fewer Bs through Ds. In English classes in Seoul schools, only the proportion of As increased throughout the year in 2018–2019, but both As and Es increased during 2019–2020.

In contrast, in Gangwon Province, students earned more As, Cs, and Ds in math in 2018–2019 and fewer Bs and Es; their proportions reversed in the 2019–2020 school year. Considering final grades in English, there were more Bs in 2018–2019 than any of the other grades in the previous year. The pre- to the post-COVID period (2019–2020) exhibited a decrease in the proportions of As, Bs, and Cs and an increase in the proportions of Ds and Es increased. In other words, the data show a pattern of fewer high grades (A, B, and C) and more low grades (D and E).

Changes in the proportions of mid-range (B, C, D) grades

To examine whether there were pre- versus post-COVID-19-related changes in the proportions of mid-range grades at the middle school level, we conducted a response-sample t-test for each of the 3 years in question (2018–2020) using only data from the second semester of each student’s second year of middle school. The analysis results are shown in Table ​ Table2 2 .

T test comparing proportion of mid-range grades at the school-level by year

*** p  < 0.001

The Seoul metropolitan area generally showed a continuous decrease in the proportion of mid-range grades from 2018 to 2020, with statistically significant declines in both English and math after COVID-19. In contrast, in Gangwon Province, the proportion of mid-range grades was generally constant between before and after COVID-19. In other words, in the case of Seoul, the mid-range grades decreased slightly before COVID-19, but the rate of this decrease accelerated afterward, whereas, in the case of Gangwon Province, COVID-19 did not significantly affect the students’ rates of mid-range grades. In Seoul, the number of mid-range students decreased as grades polarized into the upper and lower ranks following the advent of COVID-19. Gangwon Province, however, maintained a similar percentage of mid-range students pre- and post-COVID-19 due to the downward trend in academic achievement during the same period.

By subject, in Seoul, in the case of final math grades, the average proportion of mid-range grades assigned in schools was 46.38% of students in 2018 earned mid-range grades in math, and subsequent rates were 46.25% in 2019, and 40.63% in 2020, reflecting a significant decrease following the arrival of COVID-19. We found a similar trend with the English final grades: 41.81% in 2018, 40.24% in 2019, and 35.89% in 2020, indicating a greater decrease following the outbreak of COVID-19.

In the case of Gangwon Province, for final math grades, the average proportions of mid-range grades were 46.62% in 2018, 45.95% in 2019, and 45.08% in 2020, but the year-over-year difference was marginal. We observed similar rates of decrease in both 2018–2019 and 2019–2020. In English, the average proportions were 43.91% in 2018, 44.45% in 2019, and 42.05% in 2020, showing a trend of increasing the middle ranks in 2019 compared with 2018 and then decreasing again in 2020. The 3-year average proportions of mid-range grades by subject were 45.88% in math and 43.47% in English.

Differences in academic achievement according to the degree of in-person learning

Next, we analyzed the impact of in-person learning in COVID-19 when remote learning was pervasive. In this analysis, we controlled regional variables to investigate the effect of the number of in-person days within the period of COVID-19.

Descriptive statistics

Table ​ Table3 3 summarizes the statistical values for each variable before analyzing the academic gap in schools according to the degree of in-person learning by region (Ministry of Education, 2022 ). First, the average proportions of mid-range math grades were 40.63% in Seoul, 45.12% in Gangwon Province, and 41.93% in total. For English, the proportions were 35.89% in Seoul, 42.14% in Gangwon Province, and 37.70% in total. The average number of in-person learning was 46.39 days in Seoul and 94.90 days in Gangwon Province, showing a large difference by region. The overall average number of in-person learning days was 60.46. The type of school was coded as 0 for national and public schools and 1 for private schools. Private schools accounted for about 28% of Seoul schools, but only about 10% in Gangwon Province, averaging 23% for both regions.

Descriptive statistics of variables by region

To control for differences in academic achievement that could have been tied to family socioeconomic status, we calculated the actual sale price of houses in each district (provided by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (n. d.) as of September 2020). In Seoul, the average house price per square meter was KRW 6.24 million, compared with KRW 1.34 million in Gangwon Province, resulting in a total average of KRW 4.82 million. We collected the numbers of hagwon from the 2020 educational statistics annual report data organized by the Ministry of Education and Korean Education Development Institute ( 2020 ). The average number of hagwons in Seoul was 373.59, while in Gangwon Province, it was 93.69, resulting in a total average of 292.43.

Effect of in-person learning on the academic achievement gap in schools

We conducted a regression analysis on all groups in Seoul and Gangwon Province based on the second semester of the second year of middle school in 2020 to see if the degree of in-person learning affected the proportions of mid-range students. Unlike the previous analysis, we analyzed a specific year, 2020, because the difference in the degree of in-person learning was only meaningful in 2020 after remote learning was implemented after COVID-19.

Looking at Table ​ Table4, 4 , which shows the analysis results, we found that the more in-person learning days, the higher the proportion of mid-range students. In the case of math, as in-person learning increased by 1 day, the proportion of mid-range students increased by 0.038, and English increased by 0.049. In addition, the type of school and housing sales price, which were control variables, did not have a significant effect, but the number of hagwon was significant for English grades: the more hagwon in the area, the more mid-range grades.

Effect of in-person learning on the academic achievement gap in schools 8th grade in the second semester of 2020

* p  < 0.10, **p  < 0.05, ***p  < 0.01

Based on the analysis results, we find three significant indications that COVID-19 had disparate impacts on education gap depending on rural–urban and in-school disparities. These findings contribute to comparative education literature as they deepen the understanding of complex dynamics in the achievement gaps in Korea caused by the unprecedented disaster of the pandemic, which can be summarized as follows: First, we observed a widening of the education gap from 2018–2019 to 2019–2020 with increased polarization (more As and Es), but only in Seoul and not in Gangwon Province. Such regional disparity may have caused by a greater decrease in the number of in-person school days in Seoul twice as much as in Gangwon in 2020. In this study, as a result of examining the change in proportions among letter grades between the years before COVID (2018–2019) and after COVID (2019–2020), we found that the grades A and E in Seoul increased, and grades B, C, and D decreased after COVID-19. This was confirmed again in the results of the year-to-year difference verification for the mid-achieving students. Unlike Gangwon, Seoul has significantly decreased in mid-achieving students since COVID-19.

The polarization of student achievement in Seoul may result from differences in supplies of and access to  hagwon . Seoul has a wider impact of extra academic cram schools (i.e., hagwon ) as observed in their total count, six times more hagwon than Gangwon Province (Ministry of Education & Korean Educational Development Institute, 2020 ), and it was likely that grade differences would increase between students who supplemented their learning deficits with the cram schools and those who did not. Our research yielded results similar to those found by Iqbal et al., ( 2020 , April 13), who explored the potential impact of a crisis affecting access to in-person education, such as COVID-19, on the achievement gap in education. The authors produced three scenario graphs depicting the learning curve concerning this gap that reflected their conclusion: Regions or social classes without adequate learning support, such as hagwon , could show declining academic achievement during such crises (Iqbal et al., 2020 , April 13). Therefore, areas with access to education support could see more polarization in achievement.

Second, in Gangwon Province, the overall academic achievement of students tended to decline rather than widen the education gaps between the top and the bottom; there was a general increase in low-achieving students during the pandemic. This result aligns with the expectation that township areas rather than cities would exhibit a greater decline in academic performance because of inferior learning environments. The Ministry of Education ( 2021a , 2021b , June 2) reported that metropolitan areas have more students whose performance ranks in the 50th to 80th percentiles and fewer students whose performance ranks in the 30th to 50th percentiles than township areas. Examining data from France and Italy, Champeaux et al. ( 2020 ) found that students showed lower academic achievement with online learning than they had shown with face-to-face learning, although online learning did narrow the achievement gap in those countries slightly after COVID-19. Therefore, the Korean government should support Gangwon Province, a rural area with many small schools, by increasing face-to-face learning and hiring more teachers responsible only for basic education.

Third, in-person learning during COVID-19, when remote learning was pervasive, positively impacted the proportions of mid-range grades in each school regardless of region, which reduced the education gap, especially the polarization in student achievement. The higher the rate of in-person learning, the higher the proportion of mid-range grades in math and English. This is a meaningful result that appears to confirm how important it was for students to go to school and learn even during the COVID-19 situation. Indeed, researchers have been consistently reporting similar results in other works. Several countries, including Germany, Belgium, and Italy, showed declining academic achievement and increasing education gaps attributable to COVID-19 (Contini et al., 2021 ; Maldonado & De Witte, 2022 ; Schult et al., 2022 ). However, these authors did not empirically reveal the difference in achievement affected by in-person learning.

During the pandemic lockdowns, students were stuck at home with their families, and not all students received education support during that time; as a result, education inequality deepened. The high proportion of mid-range grades in schools with more in-person learning might indicate that remote education is still not as effective as face-to-face environments in which students go to school and interact with teachers to learn. In particular, low-ranking students often belong to vulnerable groups (Fong & Krause, 2014 ; Mandel et al., 1995 ) and lack self-directed learning skills (Balduf, 2009 ). Hence, they might often give up studying without being provided with a minimum learning environment at home and do not learn well on their own, leading to greater negative impacts when in-person learning decreases.

Based on the above analysis, policy suggestions are as follows. First, the government should make education policies to reduce the achievement gaps between regions, which could be used as examples for other countries experiencing similar problems, such as voucher systems to support school choice. Many rural areas lack infrastructure, and there needs to be governmental support for reinforcement classes and more in-person learning for vulnerable students in rural areas with lower incomes than in cities.

People in rural areas and vulnerable groups generally have poorer learning environments at home than people in cities and the upper classes (Hossain, 2021 ; Keser Aschenberger et al., 2023 ). As a counter to these disparities, researchers in Germany (Isphording et al., 2020 ) and the United States (Falk et al., 2021 , January 29) found that allowing virtual options alongside in-person learning promoted students’ continuous learning more effectively than full school closure. Therefore, a reduction in in-person learning may negatively affect students’ academic achievement, so measures should be taken to prevent learning deficits for students in rural areas and disadvantaged students from deepening.

Second, additional policies to reduce learning inequality are required to encourage schools to practice in-person learning. In the middle of a pandemic, in-person schools are impossible when the number of students per class surpasses the current recommendation of the Korean Ministry of Education that allows for social distancing (Ministry of Education, 2021a , 2021b , June 20). Therefore, policies limiting class size to the appropriate number of students per class should be put in place to create an environment in which students can attend school, and conditions should be prepared so that teachers and students can actively interact. In addition, it is necessary to steadily increase students’ academic management and self-directed learning skills to meet the increasing degree of their motivation in learning.

With this study, we found that nationwide crises such as COVID-19 could have disparate impacts in different regions of a nation in addition to finding that more in-person learning alleviates education polarization. However, we did identify several limitations and the need for future research in this study. First, our analysis was limited to investigating student achievement rather than other education outcomes such as non-cognitive sociality and emotions. For future research, it will be necessary to analyze data from national surveys and investigate students’ non-cognitive capabilities. Second, we focused on the education gaps within schools using individual subject exam scores. This calls for future research to identify the education gap between schools with standardized exam scores between schools to broaden the understanding of how national crises can impact education at scale.

This study was supported by a 2021 Research Grant from Kangwon National University.

Declarations

The authors declare that they have no relevant or material financial interests that relate to the research described in this paper.

The current study utilized publicly available data from the Ministry of Education. Because the research did not involve any interaction or intervention with human subjects, including the collection of any identifiable information, no approval from an institutional review board was required. This material is the authors’ own original work, which has not been previously published elsewhere and is not pending publication.

1 Hagwon refers to extra academic cram schools in the private sector that students in Korea widely attend. Throughout these institutions, many Korean students supplement schoolwork.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Published plans and annual reports 2021-2022: Ministry of Education

Plans for 2021-2022, and results and outcomes of all provincial programs delivered by the Ministry of Education in 2020-2021.

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Ministry overview and purpose.

The Ministry of Education is responsible for delivering a high-quality publicly funded education system from kindergarten to grade 12, and for the oversight of the province’s child care and early years system. The ministry is committed to ensuring all children and students have the skills and knowledge they need to reach their full potential and achieve lifelong success, and that their parents and families are also supported.

2021-22 strategic plan

Over the past two school years, the COVID‑19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the delivery of education in Ontario. The ministry will continue in its efforts to deliver a modern, sustainable, world-class education system that ensures students have the skills and knowledge to succeed in school.

The ministry will continue to work collaboratively with the education, child care and early years sectors, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health and local public health units to support planning and guidance that is responsive to the evolving public health environment.

Kindergarten to grade 12

The Ministry of Education provides policy and program direction and financial support to district school boards, school authorities, schools and agencies. Ontario is fostering and sustaining a high-quality education system for all students in the province to prepare them to graduate with the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in school, work and life. This will include a renewed focus on, and supports for, learning recovery and renewal, equity, and student mental health and well-being to support students, staff and the broader community.

Early years and child care programs

The ministry is also committed to a child care and early years system that gives children the support, care, and development they need to sustain a full continuum of learning – from their earliest years and through to their elementary, secondary and post-secondary education.

A strong child care and early years system plays a key role in supporting families and putting the province’s youngest learners on a path to lifelong success. Ontario is committed to ensuring children and families have access to a range of healthy, affordable, inclusive, safe, and high-quality early years and child care programs with flexible options that meet parents’ needs.

Alignment of programs with the government’s priorities

The following chart outlines the key government priorities that the ministry directly supports through its range of services and supports.

Government Priority

Making life more affordable

Preparing people for jobs/Preparing students for successful careers

Ministry of Education Responsibilities

• Capital and business support
• Community services I&IT
• Corporate management and services
• Early years programming
• Education equity
• Education labour and finance
• French language teaching, learning and achievement
• Indigenous education and well-being
• Student achievement
• Student support and field services
• Strategic policy and planning

COVID-19 response

The government’s top priority remains keeping the people of Ontario healthy and safe. Throughout 2020-21, the Province continued taking action to ensure the delivery of the critical services the people of Ontario needed most, including its publicly funded education system.

Investments and supports

To date, the Ministry of Education has made over $1.6 billion in resources available to support the safe reopening and operation of schools across Ontario, including $762 million in federal support provided through the Safe Return to Class Fund.

The Ontario government, in partnership with the federal government, provided $234.6 million in funding to the early years and child care system for enhanced cleaning costs as well as health and safety requirements to support the reopening of licensed child care and early years programs. The funding support was provided up to March 31, 2021. The ministry also made $66 million available for reinvestment between January and March 2021 to support increased costs of operating child care and EarlyON child and family centres during the COVID‑19 pandemic.

Building on the successes and lessons learned from the Support for Families program implemented in 2019-20, the ministry launched Support for Learners on November 30, 2020. The Support for Learners program helped families with additional costs during the 2020-21 school year due to COVID‑19, and provided $200 for each child/youth up to grade 12, and $250 for each child/youth up to age 21 with special needs.

2021 Budget

As part of the 2021 Budget, Ontario’s Action Plan: Protecting People’s Health and Our Economy , the Ontario government announced it would be providing parents with $980 million in direct support as part of the Ontario COVID‑19 Child Benefit. Under this new round of funding, payments will be doubled to $400 for each child/youth up to grade 12 and $500 for each child/youth up to age 21 with special needs to help offset additional learning costs.

Investing in online and remote learning

Connectivity is critical for students and teachers. This is why Ontario is investing $40 million in new funding over two years to improve online and remote learning technology. This investment will help improve present and future connectivity within school buildings and provide innovative tools and resources to help ensure that students and teachers can participate in remote and online learning in response to COVID‑19.

Ontario public school COVID‑19 response timeline and supports

Closure of schools.

On March 12, 2020, the Ontario government announced the closure of schools across Ontario to mitigate against the impact of the COVID‑19 pandemic. On March 31, 2020, Premier Doug Ford and Minister of Education Stephen Lecce announced, based on the advice of Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, an extension of school and child care centre closures to protect the health and safety of students and staff. To help limit community transmission of the virus, schools remained closed for the duration of the school year, with students participating in remote learning up until the end of the 2019-20 school year.

Continuity of learning

While protecting Ontario’s students and children remained paramount, the ministry also took steps to ensure the continuity of learning by making home and remote learning more accessible across the province.

The ministry launched the Learn At Home website in March 2020 to offer students and parents access to high-quality math and literacy resources in English and French. The site was regularly updated and expanded to include resources in a variety of subject areas for students in kindergarten to grade 12 and their families.

Reopening of schools

On July 30, 2020, the government released the plan for the safe reopening of schools in September 2020. This plan prioritized the health and safety of students and staff and provided school boards with unprecedented resources and flexibility, while accommodating regional differences in trends of key public health indicators. The plan included guidance that all publicly funded elementary schools would reopen across the province with in-class instruction five days a week. Most secondary schools reopened part-time with adapted delivery, and secondary schools with smaller populations reopened with full-time conventional delivery.

Health and safety measures

Reopening guidance.

To accompany the safe reopening of schools in September 2020, school boards were provided with the Guide to Reopening Ontario’s Schools and targeted, immediate and evidence-informed investments to support a number of initiatives such as personal protective equipment ( PPE ), staffing, public health nurses, testing capacity, health and safety training, and supports for student mental health and students with special education needs.

Operational guidance

As the COVID‑19 pandemic continued to evolve, on August 26, 2020 the government released the Operational Guidance: COVID‑19 Management in Schools document as part of Ontario's plan for students to safely return to the classroom. The document aimed to help schools identify and isolate COVID‑19 cases, reduce the potential transmission of the virus in schools, and prevent and minimize outbreaks.

Schools across Ontario reopened in September 2020 for the 2020-21 school year, with enhanced health and safety measures and supported by provincial and federal investments. The transmission of COVID‑19 in schools remained low in the fall.

Return to remote learning

However, in response to the rapidly evolving public health environment across the province and based on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer of Health, the Province announced temporary school closures starting in the first week of January, in order to take proactive and preventative action to protect schools and contribute to stopping the spread of COVID‑19.

Return to in-person learning

The Ministry of Education continued to consult with the Chief Medical Officer of Health and schools were gradually permitted to return to in-person learning throughout January and February 2021, depending on the Public Health Unit ( PHU ) in which they were based. This approach was based on the advice of Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, the unanimous recommendation of the Council of Medical Officers of Health, and with the support of local Medical Officers of Health. Elementary and secondary schools in all PHUs were permitted to return to in-person learning on February 16, 2021.

Improved health and safety measures

The ministry remains committed to working with education and health sector partners to improve safety measures in schools to help ensure the safety of students and staff. As part of the February 3, 2021 announcement, the minister echoed the Province’s new measures to protect students and staff from COVID‑19 in the classroom.

The measures include:

• provincewide access, in consultation with the local PHU , to targeted asymptomatic testing for students and staff
• mandatory masking requirement for students in grades 1 to 3, in addition to previous mandatory masking for students in grades 4 to 12, and masking requirement for grades 1 to 12 outdoors where physical distancing cannot be maintained
• providing 3.5 million high-quality cloth masks to schools as back-up supply for grade 1 to 12 students
• enhanced screening protocols for secondary students and staff
• guidance discouraging students from congregating before and after school
• temporary certification of eligible teacher candidates who are set to graduate in 2021 to stabilize staffing levels

Please visit Ontario’s website to learn more about how the province continues to protect Ontarians from COVID‑19.

Early years and child care supports

Early years and child care investments.

In March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic, all child care settings were mandated to close. During this period, Ontario provided funding to support all child care operators with fixed overhead costs for vacancies, enhanced cleaning, and PPE as they began reopening in the summer months.

Operational guidance and safety requirements

Ontario also supported child care settings by providing operational requirements and guidance to ensure that child care and early years settings adhered to evidence-based health and safety protocols during the reopening process. Approximately 96% of child care settings reopened with enhanced health and safety requirements following the mandated closure.

Emergency child care ( ECC )

The Emergency Child Care ( ECC ) program has been a support program developed and deployed by the Ministry of Education and municipal service management and First Nation partners at different time periods during the COVID‑19 pandemic to help mitigate the impact of school closures on parents and children.

The first iteration of the ECC program was implemented early in the pandemic from mid-March to the end of June 2020 to support eligible healthcare and other frontline workers. This program came to an end on June 26, 2020 as child care centres were permitted to reopen under strict health and safety measures. At its peak, over 3,000 children per day were served during the first iteration of ECC .

The Ministry of Education launched the second iteration of ECC in response to the second wave of the pandemic in January 2021 during the period where elementary schools were closed for in-person learning. The ministry worked with municipalities and First Nation communities to deliver its targeted ECC program to provide frontline workers with access to safe and high-quality child care for their school-aged children, at no cost. The program was in place for a six-week period through to February 16, 2021. At its peak, over 5,000 children of front-line workers were served per day.

Consistent with enhanced measures supporting a return to in-person learning in schools, the ministry also announced additional enhanced health and safety measures for child care and early years settings. These include:

• mandatory masking requirements for children grade 1 and up while in a child care setting and outdoors where two metres distance cannot be maintained
• encouraging masking for children younger than grade 1 and older than two years of age
• the requirement to confirm that daily self-screening has been done for all child care staff, visitors and placement students prior to entering a child care setting
• requiring that updated training be offered such that all child care staff/providers receive training on current health and safety measures in place according to the ministry’s operational guidance, as well as those put in place by the local public health unit
• new provincial direction that child care staff/providers and children with any new or worsening symptom of COVID‑19 (as indicated in the provincial school and child care online screening tool) must stay home, even those with only one symptom; and
• requiring that all asymptomatic household members of symptomatic individuals self-isolate until the symptomatic household member receives a negative COVID‑19 test result, or receives an alternative diagnosis by a health care professional

The Ministry of Education continuously worked with the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development and the Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health to monitor and enhance health and safety practices in Ontario’s child care settings.

Ministry financial information

The following chart depicts the ministry’s investment in 2021-22 to provide Ontario students with an excellent and accountable elementary/secondary education, so their futures and that of the province will be characterized by continued prosperity, stability and growth.

Chart 1: 2021-22 Ministry Budget by Program - Operating Expense footnote 1 [1]

1001-1 Ministry Administration $16,896,900

1002-1 Policy and Program Delivery $26,183,805,500

1002-2 Educational Operations $140,834,300

1003-1 Community Services I&IT Cluster $49,558,700

1004-1 Policy Development and Program Delivery $2,222,896,400

1002-16 Teachers' Pension Plan $1,630,877,300

Other $67,014

COVID‑19 Approvals $56,000,000

Note: Numbers and percentages may not appear to add due to rounding.

Chart 2: 2021-22 Ministry Budget by Program - Capital Expense footnote 2 [2]

1002-3 Support for Elementary and Secondary Education $2,512,440,000

1004-2 Child Care Capital $10,001,000

Other $3,557,600

COVID‑19 Approvals $20,000,000

Chart 3: 2021-22 Ministry Expenditure - Operating and Capital footnote 5 [5]

1001 Ministry Administration Program $17.0

1002 Elementary and Secondary Education Program (Operating) $26,324.6

1002 Elementary and Secondary Education Program (Capital) $2,514.2

1003 Community Services I&IT Cluster $49.6

1004 Child Care and Early Years Programs (Operating & Capital) $2,234.7

Teachers' Pension Plan $1,631

COVID‑19 Approvals $76.0

Total $32,846.9

For additional financial information, see: https://www.ontario.ca/page/expenditure-estimates https://www.ontario.ca/page/public-accounts https://budget.ontario.ca/2021/index.html

The ministry is responsible for the following classified agencies:

Operational Enterprise Agencies

• Ontario Educational Communications Authority

TVO is Ontario’s publicly funded educational media organization. TVO provides high-quality English-language educational programming and services through broadcast, distance education, and interactive web access. Distance education for secondary school credit is provided through the Independent Learning Centre ( ILC ). TVO is governed by the Ontario Educational Communications Authority Act. Its broadcast licence is governed by the federal Broadcasting Act and Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ( CRTC ) licensing.

Office des télécommunications éducatives de langue française de l’Ontario

The Ontario French-language Educational Communications Authority ( TFO ) provides high-quality educational and cultural multimedia services and content to the 12 French-language school boards and the broader Franco-Ontarian community. The organization also provides French as a Second Language resources to Ontario’s 60 English-language school boards. TFO ’s programming, support services and resources contribute to meeting the ministry’s student success priorities. TFO focuses on French-language and culture initiatives, that support the early years, literacy and numeracy, eLearning, and the Politique d’aménagement linguistique ( PAL ).

Operational Service Agencies

• Education Quality and Accountability Office

The Education Quality and Accountability Office ( EQAO ) conducts large-scale census assessments of student achievement: grade 3 and grade 6 students in reading, writing and mathematics; grade 9 students in mathematics; and the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test, typically administered in grade 10, which is the primary means of satisfying the Ontario literacy requirement for graduation. EQAO publishes annual results for each of its assessments in English and French and provides the education system with board, school and individual student level results. EQAO also administers Ontario’s participation in national and international testing such as Pan-Canadian Assessment Program ( PCAP ) and Programme for International Student Assessment ( PISA ), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study ( TIMSS ) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study ( PIRLS ).

• Provincial Schools Authority

The Provincial Schools Authority ( PSA ) was established as an agency of the Ministry of Education in 1975 under the Provincial Schools Negotiations Act . The PSA is the employer of record for teachers employed in provincially operated schools. These employees are represented by the Provincial Schools Authority Teachers ( PSAT ), which is a district of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation ( OSSTF ). The PSA is also the employer of record for principals and vice principals in provincially operated schools. The principals and vice principals are not represented by a union and do not have a collective agreement. The PSA reviews and advises on the terms and conditions of employment for principals and vice-principals. The PSA also handles grievances, leaves and related administrative functions.

Advisory Agencies

Minister’s advisory council on special education.

The Minister’s Advisory Council on Special Education ( MACSE ) advises the Minister on any matter related to the establishment and provision of special education programs and services for students with special education needs.

Ministry organization chart

• Parliamentary Assistant, Sam Oosterhoff
• Communications Branch, Rebecca Morier (Acting)
• Executive Assistant, Vanessa Bennett
• Education Equity Initiatives Branch, Rachel Osborne (Acting)
• Executive Assistant, Mercilyn Baxter (Acting)
• Education Health Advisor, Dr. Joshua Tepper
• Field Services Branch [Regional Offices: Barrie; London; Ottawa; Sudbury-North Bay; Thunder Bay; and Toronto and Area], Vacant
• Executive Assistant, Thuwanika Kandasamy (Acting)
• Strategic Policy & Initiatives Branch, Nicole Simone (Acting)
• Education Research & Evaluation Strategy Branch, Erica Van Roosemalen
• System Evidence and Design Branch, Sarah Dunsford (Acting)
• Education Statistics and Analysis Branch, Eric Ward
• Strategic Planning & Transformation Branch, Russ Riddell
• Pauline Harnum, Executive Assistant
• Education Labour Relations Office, Vacant
• Labour Relations Operations Branch, Lynda Coulter
• Labour Relations Operations (Bilingual) & Policy Branch, Sandi Tanner
• Education Finance Office, Doreen Lamarche
• Education Funding Branch, Paul Duffy
• Financial Analysis & Accountability Branch, Med Ahmadoun
• Labour & Finance Implementation Branch, Romina Di Pasquale
• Dhrti Chander (Acting), Executive Assistant
• Capital Policy Branch, Andrea Dutton (Acting)
• Capital Program Branch, Paul Bloye
• School Board Business Support Branch, Colleen Hogan (Acting)
• Leadership, Collaboration & Governance Branch, Jonathan Lear (Acting)
• Lillian Lo (Acting), Executive Assistant
• Early Years & Child Care Programs & Service Integration Branch, Jill Dubrick
• Child Care Quality Assurance & Licensing Branch, Jason McLean (Acting)
• Financial Accountability & Data Analytics Branch, Becky Doyle
• Jennifer Ng (Acting), Executive Assistant
• Indigenous Education Office, Taunya Paquette
• Safe & Healthy Schools Branch, Patrick Byam
• Inclusive Education, Priorities & Engagement Branch, Suzanne Gordon
• Silva Boghossian (Acting), Executive Assistant
• Special Education / Success for All Branch, Claudine Munroe
• Provincial & Demonstration Schools Branch, Karyn Bruneel
• Hannah McKibbon (Acting), Executive Assistant
• Professionalism, Teaching Policy & Standards Branch, Rachel Ryerson (Acting)
• Curriculum Assessment & Student Success Policy Branch, Jennifer Chan (Acting)
• Skills Development & Apprenticeship Branch, Dianne Oliphant (Acting)
• Student Achievement Supports Branch, Vacant
• Sira Kanoute (Acting), Executive Assistant
• French-Language Education, Policies and Programs Branch, Luc Davet
• French-Language Teaching & Learning Branch, Véronique Simcoe (Acting)
• French-Language Priorities Branch ( MCU ) Gilles Fortin
• Deborah Camacho (Acting), Executive Assistant
• Strategic Human Resources Branch, Nadine Ramdial
• Corporate Coordination Branch, Sarah Truscott
• Corporate Finance and Services Branch, Paul Cleaver (Acting)
• Ontario Internal Audit Education Audit Service Team, Michael Benn
• Legal Services Branch, Shannon Chace
• Marie Dearlove, Executive Assistant
• iACCESS Solutions Branch, Farshad Mahlooji (Acting)
• Strategic Planning and Business Relationship Management Branch, Aleli Gulak (Acting)
• Data Collection and Decision Support Solutions Branch, Carm Scarfo
• Case and Grant Management Solutions Branch, Sanaul Haque
• Advisory Council on Special Education
• Languages of Instruction Commission of Ontario
• Ontario French-Language Educational Communications Authority

Download printer-friendly organization chart ( JPG , 256 KB ).

Appendix A: 2020-21 Annual Report

Below are highlights of the Ministry of Education’s 2020-21 accomplishments and achievements, beginning with announcements made March 31, 2020 and onward. For more information, please refer to Ontario’s official news source .

Highlights of 2020-21 achievements

Ontario extends school and child care closures to fight spread of covid‑19.

Due to the rapidly evolving COVID‑19 outbreak, the Ontario government announced that schools and child care centres will remain closed to protect the health and safety of students and staff. This extension was made on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer of Health.

To ensure continuity of learning, the government launched the second phase of Learn at Home. Developed in conjunction with education partners, the government provided clarity for parents, enhancing education supports, and creating opportunities for teachers and educators to connect with students.

Ontario protects parents during COVID‑19

During the COVID‑19 outbreak, the Ontario government temporarily prevented child care centres from collecting payments from parents, while also ensuring that their child care spaces were protected. Child care centres, with the exception of those accommodating health care and other frontline workers, were ordered closed to help prevent the spread of the virus and keep the children and child care staff safe.

Ontario offers emergency child care to more frontline staff

The Ontario government expanded the list of essential workers eligible to receive emergency child care. This helped additional frontline staff during the COVID‑19 outbreak. An emergency order was also issued which offered support to those providing a variety of critical services including people who assist vulnerable communities, emergency response and law enforcement sector staff, more health and safety workers, and certain federal employees.

School closures extended to keep students, staff and families safe

Based on expert advice from the Chief Medical Officer of Health and health officials on the COVID‑19 Command Table, Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced that all publicly funded schools would remain closed until at least May 31, 2020, as part of an effort to keep students, staff and families safe from COVID‑19.

Restoring public confidence with the Peel district school board

Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, announced the appointment of Arleen Huggins to conduct an investigation into the Peel District School Board's compliance with the Minister's binding Directions to the Board that were issued previously on March 13, 2020.

With the issuance of 27 binding Directions to the Board on March 13, 2020 , the Minister provided clear direction with specific timelines and deliverables to address systemic discrimination, particularly anti-Black racism, as well as dysfunctional governance, leadership and human resources practices within the PDSB .

Supervisor appointed to peel district school board

Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, issued a statement on the appointment of Bruce Rodrigues to supervise the Peel District School Board ( PDSB ). The appointment of a Supervisor allowed the PDSB to get back on track and undertake the necessary actions to eliminate the practices and policies underpinning discrimination and inequities.

More frontline workers eligible for emergency child care

The Ontario government further expanded the list of essential workers eligible to receive free emergency child care during the COVID‑19 outbreak. Those who benefitted included people who work in the food supply chain, retirement homes, grocery stores and pharmacies, and certain federal employees, including the military.

Ontario government supporting parents as economy reopens

The Ontario government announced it would protect licensed child care in Ontario during the COVID‑19 outbreak by ensuring parents retain access to local licensed child care, as well as EarlyON Child and Family Centres. The government unveiled a plan that, together with federal and municipal partnership, provided supports to licensed child care providers to ensure they remained sustainable and ready to open when parents returned to work.

Voluntary redeployment of education workers to fill staffing shortages

The Ontario government worked together with the province's education sector to voluntarily place available employees in staffing roles needed at congregate care settings during the COVID‑19 outbreak. This initiative was part of the government's ongoing efforts to redeploy broader public sector workers to areas where they were needed most, such as hospitals, long-term care homes, retirement homes, women's shelters, and homes serving those with developmental disabilities.

A framework was developed and endorsed by the Ontario government, trustees' associations, and almost all of the provincial union representatives that would allow the temporary voluntary redeployment of education sector employees, while ensuring they maintained their employment status with their school boards.

Ontario helping parents return to work

The Ontario government announced its plan to reopen child care centres across the province to support the next stage of the province's reopening framework. Developed in consultation with Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health and medical leaders at The Hospital for Sick Children, the plan required child care operators to follow strict health protocols to ensure the safety of child care staff and children.

As the province continued to implement its Framework for Reopening the Province , child care centres and home care providers across Ontario were able to reopen with strict safety and operational requirements in place, similar to the safety guidelines required for emergency child care centres.

Ontario develops additional learning materials for students and teachers

The Ontario government, in partnership with Science North and the Ontario Science Centre, created additional educational content for students and teachers during the school closures resulting from COVID‑19. The province provided up to $1.5 million to create made-in-Ontario videos and resources to support Science, Technology, Engineering and Math ( STEM ) learning. The resources aligned with the four science strands in the curriculum and helped students from kindergarten to grade 12.

Ontario makes major investment in mental health and technology to support students

Ontario Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, announced $15 million to purchase thousands of classroom computers, and $10 million to hire additional mental health workers. These new resources helped ensure students could return to school with the confidence and the tools they need to succeed. This funding represented the highest amount the Ministry of Education had ever dedicated to these two areas through the Grants for Student Needs ( GSN ).

Through consultations with Public Health Ontario, the Hospital for Sick Children and front-line workers, the government heard about the need for enhanced mental health supports to respond to COVID‑19. This $10 million investment provided students with unprecedented direct access to regulated mental health professionals and significantly reduced wait times.

Ontario makes historic investment in public education

The Ontario government announced that it is investing $736 million more in public education for the 2020-21 school year, increasing the total to more than $25.5 billion. This funding, through the Grants for Student Needs ( GSN ), represented the largest investment in public education in Ontario's history. As a result, Ontario's average per-pupil funding amount reached $12,525, which was an increase of $250 over the previous year.

Under the GSN , a new $213 million student-centric Supports for Students Fund also supported:

• special education
• mental health and well-being
• language instruction
• Indigenous education
• STEM programming

Ontario introduces new math curriculum for elementary students

The Ontario government released the province's new elementary math curriculum to better prepare students for work in a rapidly changing world, strengthen math competence and improve grades. The curriculum was developed over two years in consultation with parents, math educators, academics and math education experts, and is designed to reverse a decade of declining math scores. It was made available to students across the province beginning in September 2020.

Ontario taking bold action to address racism and inequity in schools

The Ontario government announced bold new changes to the education system to help break down barriers for Black, Indigenous and racialized students and provide all students with an equal opportunity to succeed.

As part of this action, the province committed to moving forward with plans to end grade 9 streaming into applied and academic courses, eliminate discretionary suspensions for students in kindergarten to grade 3, strengthen sanctions for teachers who engage in behaviour of a racist nature, and provide teachers with additional anti-racism and anti-discrimination training.

Ontario building and expanding schools across the province

The Ontario government invested over $500 million to build 30 new schools and make permanent additions to 15 existing facilities, supporting over 25,000 student spaces across the province. These new, modern schools will create the foundation for a 21 st  century learning environment for thousands of students across the province. This investment will also generate nearly 900 new licensed child care spaces to ensure families across the province are able to access child care in their communities.

The government committed to investing over $12 billion in capital grants over 10 years to build critical new school capital projects and permanent additions. This built upon the government's commitment to invest up to $1 billion over five years to create up to 30,000 licensed child care spaces in schools, including up to 10,000 spaces in new schools and school additions.

Ontario releases plan for safe reopening of schools in September

The Ontario government announced the safe reopening of schools for in-class instruction beginning in September 2020. The government unveiled a plan that prioritized the health and safety of students and staff, and provided school boards with unprecedented resources and flexibility, while accommodating regional differences in trends of key public health indicators. This plan was developed in consultation with the Chief Medical Officer of Health, the COVID‑19 Command Table and paediatric experts.

Historic agreement delivers over $230 million for child care

The Ontario government, in partnership with the federal government, provided $234.6 million in funding to keep children and staff safe in child care and early years settings. This funding helped support enhanced cleaning costs as well as health and safety requirements set out to support the reopening of licensed child care and early years programs. This funding was in addition to the Ontario government's continued commitment to stabilize the child care sector as many Ontarians return to work.

Ontario takes additional steps to better protect students and staff

The Ontario government provided more than half a billion dollars in supports to school boards to ensure schools across the province could reopen safely in September and to protect students and staff. These supports enabled school boards to provide more physical distancing in classrooms and direct funding to utilize non-school community spaces, and allowed school boards to make adjustments based on their local needs.

Ontario transfers Governance of Francophone school serving students with special needs

The Ontario government proudly announced the transfer of governance of Centre Jules-Léger ( CJL ) from the Ministry of Education to the CJL Consortium. This transfer marked a major milestone for the Franco-Ontarian community, as it ensured that the province's only French-language school for children who are Deaf or hard of hearing, blind or have low vision, are deafblind, or have severe learning disabilities would be governed by Francophones for Francophones.

Additional funds enhance ontario's robust back-to-school plan

The Ontario government's back-to-school plan, developed in consultation with the Chief Medical Officer of Health and public health officials, was further enhanced by additional federal investments and resources to support the return to class in the fall. The Federal Safe Return to Class Fund provided an initial $381 million to Ontario school boards, on top of the nearly $900 million provided by the province to support provincial back-to-school plans.

Ontario releases COVID‑19 management plan for schools

As part of Ontario's plan for students to safely return to the classroom in September, the government released the Operational Guidance: COVID‑19 Management in Schools document. This guide was developed in consultation with public health experts, including Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, and aimed to help schools identify and isolate COVID‑19 cases, reduce the spread of COVID‑19 in schools, and prevent and minimize outbreaks.

In addition, it was announced that Dr. Dirk Huyer, who was recently the Executive Lead for the COVID‑19 Testing Approach at the Command Table and is the Chief Coroner for Ontario, would serve as Coordinator, Provincial Outbreak Response.

Ontario expanding youth training programs to promote the skilled trades

The Ontario government announced it was investing $43 million in expanded youth training programs to give young people exposure to more employment options. The programs helped to increase awareness and encourage youth to acquire the skills that will start them down the path to lifelong success while supporting Ontario's economic recovery and future prosperity.

Governments extend child care funding to support working parents

Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education, and Ahmed Hussen, Federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, announced an additional investment through the one-year Canada-Ontario Early Learning and Child Care Agreement ( ELCC ) of nearly $147 million to Ontario for 2020-21. This funding helped licensed child care providers and EarlyON child and family centres.

In 2020-21, ELCC funding supported measures to minimize the impacts of COVID‑19. It would also continue to support initiatives outlined in the initial three-year agreement, including increased access for families and professional learning for staff. Funding provided through the ELCC was in addition to $234.6 million being provided through the Safe Restart Agreement to keep children and staff safe in child care and early years settings.

Ontario takes extraordinary steps to reopen schools safely

As students, teachers and staff return to school, the Ontario government provided up to $1.3 billion in critical supports after delivering more than 37 million pieces of personal protective equipment ( PPE ) to safely reopen classrooms across the province. These investments were part of Ontario's comprehensive back to school plan which was developed in consultation with medical experts, school boards, and educators.

Ontario launches new COVID‑19 screening tool to help protect students and staff

The Ontario government launched a new voluntary interactive screening tool to assist parents, students and staff with the daily assessment of COVID‑19 symptoms and risk factors. Screening was required before attending school. The results let parents, students, and education staff know whether they should attend school each day or guide at-risk individuals to proper resources. This tool was another layer of prevention that the province used to protect the health and safety of students, staff, and the communities where they live and work.

Ontario moving to standardized online testing for students

The Ontario government is modernizing large-scale provincial student testing to better prepare youth for the future, and re-build parent confidence in the education system. The Education Quality and Accountability Office ( EQAO ), which creates and administers assessments, will procure a firm to develop an online, adaptive testing platform.

For the 2020-21 school year, EQAO is field-testing online assessments for grade 9 math and for the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test ( OSSLT ). This field test will provide an opportunity for students to try this new format and will support the continued development of the assessment platform.

Ontario working to increase the supply of French-language teachers in the province

The Ontario government took action to recruit and retain more French teachers to ensure that all students receive a high-quality French-language or French as a Second Language ( FSL ) education. To assist in this effort the province supported various initiatives such as career fairs, and partnered with two working groups to focus on professional development for French teachers and raise awareness of employment opportunities.

Ontario revises COVID‑19 screening guidance for schools and child care

In consultation with the Chief Medical Officer of Health, the Ontario government updated its COVID‑19 school and child care screening guidance. This additional information helped parents determine when it was most appropriate for students, children and their families to seek a test for COVID‑19.

The school and child care screening guidance was updated with two sets of questions about symptoms and information to help parents make informed decisions about whether their children should attend school or child care, or whether or not to consult a health care provider, or get tested for COVID‑19. The guidance could be found immediately at the COVID‑19 Screening Tool for Children in School and Child Care , and the refreshed online tool was launched in October 2020 for download.

Ontario taking action to improve child care

Ontario released two child care reports: Strengthening Early Years and Child Care in Ontario and the Early Years and Child Care Annual Report 2020 . The Strengthening Early Years and Child Care in Ontario report detailed how Ontario is helping to provide more child care and before and after school spaces for parents, as well as increasing opportunities for home child care providers. The report was developed with input from families and sector partners. These same groups provided input into the review of the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014 .

Ontario releases $35 million to hire more staff, improve remote learning in targeted communities

The Ontario government announced the allocation of $35 million to provide additional immediate school board supports in the communities of Peel, Ottawa, Toronto and York Region to enhance public health measures and protection strategies as they confronted higher rates of transmission in their communities.

Ontario invests $550 million to build and upgrade schools

The Ontario government invested $550 million to build 20 new schools and eight permanent school additions across the province in 2020-21. These new projects will create nearly 16,000 new student learning spaces and 870 new licensed child care spaces as part of the government's ongoing efforts to improve and build modern schools.

Ontario provides additional support to help indigenous students succeed

Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, announced that the Ontario government is providing $17 million dollars over three years to support First Nation, Métis, Inuit, and urban Indigenous education partners. This funding provided certainty for Indigenous education partners while ensuring safe learning environments for Indigenous students – either in person, or through remote and alternative learning options.

Ontario providing additional funding to enhance safety and protection in schools

The Ontario government announced it was providing $13.6 million to enable school boards to hire more teachers and staff in regions recently moved to the Red-Control level and providing stabilization funding for school boards, if needed. The province also expanded testing in school communities and launched new online learning portals. These initiatives enhanced safety measures for schools and alleviate potential budget shortfalls during COVID‑19.

Ontario providing additional financial support for young learners

The Ontario government provided additional financial relief for families facing new education-related expenses in the COVID‑19 era with support totalling $380 million. The program was expanded to secondary school students to help parents offset education costs.

Safer at home programs provide relief to Ontario families

The Ontario government announced it was providing new financial supports for individuals, families and small businesses, as they do their part to stop the spread of COVID‑19 and protect the province's health care system during the Provincewide Shutdown. The province expanded the Support for Learners program to include secondary school students and lowering electricity prices to a discounted off-peak rate 24/7 for all time-of-use and tiered customers.

Ontario provides funding for autism training

The Ontario government announced it was providing $7.5 million to help educators better support children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The funding was used to deliver online courses and training opportunities for teachers and educational assistants in all 72 of Ontario's district school boards. The training program is delivered by the Geneva Centre for Autism.

Ontario supporting increased access to French-language early years and child care programs

Ontario invested $150,000 to create two new positions at the provincial advocacy group l'Association francophone à l'éducation des services à l'enfance de l'Ontario ( AFÉSEO ). These positions promote the recruitment, retention and professional development of French-language early childhood educator staff while supporting the provision of high-quality French-language services in child care and early years programs.

Ontario making additional investments to keep students and staff safe

The Ontario government announced it would provide an additional $381 million, provided through the federal Safe Return to Class Fund , to keep schools safe from COVID‑19. Although transmission in schools had been low, this funding was used to optimize air quality and ventilation in schools, support online learning, promote student mental health and hire additional staff. With this new funding, over $1.6 billion was made available to schools to better protect students, staff, and families.

Enhanced safety measures in place as in-person learning resumes across Ontario

Education Minister, Stephen Lecce, announced the dates for the return of in-person learning in all remaining Ontario public health units ( PHUs ). The government's decision was based on the advice of Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, the unanimous recommendation of the Council of Medical Officers of Health, and with the support of local Medical Officers of Health.

Ontario takes action to support working families and improve child care

The Ontario government announced regulatory amendments to support working families and improve the child care and early years sector, and advance the province's dual priorities of accessibility and affordability for parents.

Province doubles support for parents with new Ontario COVID‑19 Child Benefit

The Ontario government provided parents with $980 million in direct support as part of the Ontario COVID‑19 Child Benefit. Under this new round of funding, payments were doubled to $400 per child and $500 for a child with special needs to help offset additional learning costs. This investment was part of the 2021 Budget, Ontario's Action Plan: Protecting People's Health and Our Economy.

Ratification of central labour agreements announced in 2020-21

Minister of Education Statement on Ratification of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association Central Agreement

Ratification of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario Central Agreements

Ontario Council of Educational Workers Central Agreement Now Ratified

Ratification of Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens Central Agreement

Ratification of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation Central Agreements

Ratification of the Education Workers' Alliance of Ontario Central Agreement (statement published on February 2020)

ISSN 2369-1905 (online)

• footnote [1] Back to paragraph ^ Includes statutory appropriations but excludes consolidation adjustments and assets. The Other category includes Statutory Salaries and Bad Debt Expense in votes 1001, 1002 and 1004. The appropriation approvals for COVID‑19 Time Limited initiatives as per the 2021 Ontario Budget.
• footnote [2] Back to paragraph ^ Includes statutory appropriations but excludes consolidation adjustments and assets. The Other category includes Amortization Expense and Expense related to Capital Assets in votes 1002 and 1004.The appropriation approvals for COVID‑19 Time Limited initiatives as per the 2021 Ontario Budget.
• footnote [3] Back to paragraph ^ The appropriation approvals for COVID‑19 Time-Limited initiatives as per the 2021 Ontario Budget.
• footnote [4] Back to paragraph ^ Includes statutory appropriations but excludes consolidation adjustments. This number is based on changes in ministry organization and/or program structure as approved in the 2021 Ontario Budget.
• footnote [5] Back to paragraph ^ Includes statutory appropriations but excludes consolidation adjustments and assets. The funding for COVID‑19 covid 19 initiatives has been managed from within.
• footnote [6] Back to paragraph ^ Estimates, Interim Actuals and Actuals for prior fiscal years are re-stated to reflect any changes in ministry organization and/or program structure as approved in the 2021 Ontario Budget. Interim Actuals reflect the numbers presented in the 2021 Ontario Budget. Estimates 2020-21 include Supplementary Estimates 2020-21.
• footnote [7] Back to paragraph ^ Estimates, Interim Actuals and Actuals for prior fiscal years are re-stated to reflect any changes in ministry organization and/or program structure as approved in the 2021 Ontario Budget. Interim Actuals reflect the numbers presented in the 2021 Ontario Budget.
• footnote [8] Back to paragraph ^ Not including consolidation adjustments.
• footnote [9] Back to paragraph ^ Includes statutory appropriations but excludes consolidation adjustments. This number is based on Restated Interim Actuals which reflect any changes in ministry organization and/or program structure as approved in the 2021 Ontario Budget, and final actual expenditures will be stated in the 2020-21 Public Accounts.
• footnote [10] Back to paragraph ^ This number excludes seasonal staff, students, and employees on leave.