Fall 2024 Update
Hello Ontario School Safety Subscribers,
We have a few updates on what the busy members of OSS have been working on!
Investigating Air Quality at Your Child’s School—New Resource!
Are you concerned about the air quality at your child’s school? Are you finding it hard to know which questions to ask your principal or school board that will ensure your child has a healthy learning environment?
In Ontario School Safety’s new Air Quality Investigation Guide (reviewed and endorsed by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers), you will learn:
The right questions to ask to gather air quality information and to request improvements at your child’s school.
The difference between natural, partial, hybrid and mechanical ventilation.
Proven tools and strategies to improve air quality in classrooms and other areas of the school.
Guidance to schools from the Ontario Ministry of Education.
Recommendations from ASHRAE 62.1 and 241.
Download the Air Quality Investigation Guide today!
We thank OSPE for their support! Also, we’re excited that both OSSTF and ETFO shared this resource with their members. For additional information and guidance on safer indoor air quality, we recommend you consult OSPE's Indoor Air Quality Reports.
New Fundraising Platform
In the coming weeks, we will be transitioning from GoFundMe to Zeffy, a new fundraising platform. This change will not only simplify donations, but also provide more opportunities for us to keep our donors updated. Importantly, it’s free—no more 2.9% cut taken off the donations!
In the meantime, we warmly encourage donations to our GoFundMe which help cover our administrative expenses and the cost of producing and sharing resources for safer schools.
FOI Collection and Analysis
We continue to be grateful to members of the public who supported OSS in our efforts to submit Freedom of Information requests to acquire staff and student absence data for school boards in Ontario. We did receive information for one large school board and a few smaller ones, but we are waiting on receipt of an additional one to ensure our analyses are accurate. Despite our desire to share what we’ve analyzed sooner rather than later, the delays are out of our control; in the meantime, however, we are preparing for what we believe will be the best way to share these data publicly once we receive and analyze the one we’re waiting on.
Legal Challenge
We are continuing our search for potential applicants. If you or someone you know has been negatively impacted by poor air quality in a school and/or on a school bus, please reach out through the link provided below.
Examples of impacts of poor indoor air quality in schools might include:
Increased frequency or severity of illnesses
Lost time from school
Lost time from work and income due to illness (including that of a teen and part-time job), homeschooling, and/or having to care for a family member who is ill
Decline in quality of education due to staff absences/instability
Transportation issues related to bus driver shortages and illness
Negative impact on career due to lost time, illness, etc.
Long-term illness/disability due to illness and/or inability to return to school or work
Mental health impacts
Loss of family member(s) (bereavement)
Damaged or irreparable relationships
Loss of visiting time with high-risk loved ones
Decline in academic performance (e.g. falling behind, inconsistent education due to illness or to staffing shortages)
Staffing shortages due to illness
Loss of income and business closures due to illness (i.e., staff shortages, client cancellations)
If you have a story to share, please click here: Share your story | Ontario School Safety.
Sharing your story will help Ontario School Safety gather information, raise awareness about the issues, and help inform the direction of a legal challenge.
Note: Sharing your story does not commit you to participating in the legal challenge. We take confidentiality seriously and only share stories with expressed permission.
Ontario School Safety Staying Active in the Community
OSS member speaking on CFRA “Ottawa Now” with Andrew Pinsent in response to extreme heat in schools:
OSS’s participation in letters to multiple levels of government encouraging them to run public vaccination education campaigns to dispel vaccine misinformation/disinformation, and to provide Novavax as a fall vaccine option to all who need or want it:
and
No good option: These Canadians want to be protected against COVID but are unhappy with the choice of vaccines this fall (enter email address for free access)
OSS playing a role in the retraction of a Jan 2024 JAMA Pediatrics paper due it containing serious errors and misleading information about children and Long Covid:
University of Alberta researchers retract COVID study, citing multiple errors | CBC News
Clean air advocate (also a member of OSS) taking part in “World Ventil8 Day” in a video explaining the importance of ventilation in the many places in which we spend our time—especially in schools where children spend most of theirs—and the need for paradigm shifts in how we see the importance of clean air.
OSS members endorsing a letter, created by local families and community members (including several OSS members), to Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trustees requesting they adopt an indoor air quality policy with accurate monitoring and reporting.
Thank you for your continued support!