Ontario students to return to school full time in the fall, with no class-size limits for youngest learners

Ontario schools will reopen this fall with no class-size limits for its youngest learners, a mix of in-class and remote learning at the secondary level, and the country’s only mandatory mask requirement for middle- and high-school students.

The government announced on Thursday that most of the province’s two million students will be in school full-time, similar to plans rolled out in other provinces, including British Columbia, Alberta and Nova Scotia. Manitoba released a similar plan on Thursday, where learning in classrooms will be full-time for students in kindergarten to Grade 8, with some remote learning for high-school students to maintain physical distancing and minimize the spread of coronavirus.

“Reopening schools is crucial to the social-emotional development of Ontario students,” Education Minister Stephen Lecce said Thursday. “It’s also crucial to allowing parents to return to work and to support Ontario’s economic recovery.”