Excerpted from the introduction
This section of the Before and After School Kindergarten to Grade 6 Policies and Guidelines for School Boards is intended to provide clarification and best practices to operate before and after school programs with enhanced health and safety guidelines and/or restrictions in place for the 2020-2021 school year due to COVID-19. This guidance document will be modified from time to time, as applicable, to reflect any updated or new advice.
All before and after school programs operated or contracted by the board should follow the health and safety requirements set out by the Ministry of Education for core-school program delivery as well as guidance provided by the school board and local public health unit. Advice of the local public health unit must be followed, even in the event that it conflicts with, or is inconsistent with, this guidance document.
For licensed child care operators, additional operational guidance is provided under O. Reg. 137/15 made under the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014 and the Ministry of Education’s document entitled Operational Guidance During COVID-19 Outbreak: Child Care Re-Opening, as amended from time to time.
At this time, the Ministry of Education has provided direction that all before and after school programs may operate with pre-COVID-19 outbreak declaration ratios and maximum group size requirements beginning in September 2020.
The ministry has developed a new resource entitled Building on How Does Learning Happen? that provides pedagogical approaches to re-opening child care and early years settings, including before and after school programs. This resource shares ideas, reflective questions and lessons learned from emergency child care to help to support child care and early years settings as they work to provide healthy physical, social and emotional spaces for children and their families as they gradually re-open.