Extracurricular activities, such as sports, clubs, bands, and field trips, will soon resume at Toronto schools under updated guidance from Toronto Public Health (TPH)—a big change from when school started earlier this month, when TPH recommended pausing extracurricular activities due to ongoing fears about the COVID-19 fourth wave.
Now, TPH is recommending the gradual return of extracurriculars as schools establish routines and cohorts, and are confident in health and safety protocols—news that the Toronto District School Board calls “very encouraging.”
“We know how important these activities are to students’ mental and physical health and overall school experience,” Colleen Russell-Rawlins, the TDSB Director of Education said in a statement.
Under the new guidance, schools can gradually resume clubs and bands (with exception to wind and brass instruments), and sports with mixed cohorts. It’s recommended that this gradual return begins with students between the ages of 12 and 17 (who are eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccination) and that high-contact/high-intensity activities (e.g., football, field hockey, basketball) take place outdoors at this time.
Although masking is not required when participating in high-intensity activities outdoors, masks and physical distancing should be considered when possible, the guidelines state.
Low contact and low-intensity activities (e.g., clubs, bands, and some sports) are permitted indoors, although masking and physical distancing is required for indoor activities.
It’s also recommended that the number of clubs/extracurricular activities/cohorts a student can participate in at any one time be limited, and that people from different schools/mixed cohorts limit interactions to the outdoors.
Regarding field trips, TPH recommends a gradual return beginning with students between the ages of 12 and 17 (who are eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccination), and when health and safety protocols are well established in the schools. The updated guidelines also state that field trips should only proceed when COVID-19 vaccine confirmation for volunteers is in place.
TPH is encouraging virtual field trips where possible and they are not currently recommending overnight field trips (click here for the full guidance document provided to Toronto school boards).
“As staff at each school will need time to create plans to reintroduce extracurriculars, the start of these activities will vary from school to school based on staff volunteers,” Russell-Rawlins said in her statement.
Meanwhile, on Monday, Ontario reported 610 new cases of COVID-19; 458 cases are in individuals who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 152 are in fully vaccinated individuals. The new cases are a decrease from the 715 reported on Sunday, but a slight increase from the 600 cases reported a week ago.
The province also reported two more deaths, a decrease from the five deaths reported the previous day (although one death from yesterday’s report occurred more than one month ago, it was added to the cumulative count based on data cleaning).
The total number of COVID-19 cases in Ontario now sits at 580,194, with 564,163 resolved cases and 9,655 total deaths.
In Ontario, 21,404,362 vaccine doses have been administered. Nearly 85.1% of Ontarians 12+ have received one dose and nearly 79.1% have received two doses. Provincial officials also report that 233 people are hospitalized with COVID-19, with 177 people in ICU due to COVID-19.
As of Sept. 22, Ontarians will be required to provide proof of vaccination to access certain businesses and settings.
Click here for a full breakdown of Ontario’s new COVID-19 vaccine passport system and here for more COVID-19 Ontario updates.
