At a press conference on Thursday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford continued to defend the province’s school plan for the fall, primarily addressing concerns about class sizes in elementary school.s
“We have the best plan, bar none, over any province,” Ford said. “All the other provinces are shouting and screaming, saying we want Ontario’s plan.”
He added that he would like to see class sizes as small as possible, “within certain parameters” and Ontario has the “lowest number of kids in the classroom in the whole country” for Grade 1 to 3.
Ontario’s Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, stressed that the province has “the most comprehensive masking policy,” in addition to additional investment to hire custodians, and the implementation of additional safety and cleaning measures.
He added that the province’s one-metre distance rule in schools in “consistent with virtual every province that has a position with distancing.”
“In Grade 1 to 3, for example, Ontario for 90 per cent of classes are capped at 20 students, the next 10 per cent could vary up to 23,” Lecce said. “We have by far the smallest classroom size in the earliest years in the country, full stop.”
