TORONTO — Proactive COVID-19 testing could be conducted in some Ontario schools if local health officials are concerned that community spread of the virus presents a risk, the province's chief medical officer of health said Thursday.

Dr. David Williams said while students are to be kept in strict cohorts that limit contact with other children, there may be scenarios where public health officials opt for broader, more proactive testing in schools.

"If there was a hot spot in an area that was deemed to be high community spread ... we might choose to do some testing there," Williams said. "So we want to define that carefully with the local public health leadership."

Williams' comments came as a former Ontario education minister urged the province to conduct "surveillance" testing for COVID-19 at schools in virus hot spots around the province.

Mitzie Hunter said in a letter the Health Minister Christine Elliott on Thursday that the province must provide greater reassurance to parents who are already anxious about the government's school reopening plan.

The Liberal legislator, who was education minister in the previous government, said optional testing should be conducted before the start of classes and continue into the beginning of the school year.

"I want to see a proactive rather than reactive approach for a safe return for those schools," Hunter said in an interview. 

The province announced its plan to reopen schools last month and has been under pressure to mandate and pay for a reduction in elementary class sizes to increase physical distancing among students.

Last week, it announced that school boards can access $500 million of their own reserves to hire additional teachers and lease space to encourage physical distancing.

The boards have expressed frustration with that plan, saying reserves are committed to priority projects.

Premier Doug Ford said Thursday that the province has a plan for testing proactive testing, but offered no specific details of that strategy.

He also announced the hiring of 200 new provincial police officers at a cost of $25 million — a move Ford defended as critics said the province should be pumping more money into teacher hiring instead.

"I don't like the idea of comparing apples and oranges," said Ford, adding that school boards have been given direction to hire more teachers to encourage physical distancing in classrooms.

"The reserves are there for a rainy day," he said. "I haven't seen a storm like this in quite some time ... so let's use the reserves and hire more teachers."

Canada's largest school board voted unanimously Thursday to adopt a school reopening strategy that focuses on reducing class sizes for schools in areas most at risk to the virus.

Under the plan, the Toronto District School Board will lease additional space and hire more teachers to limit the number of students in the classroom. The money will come from the board's reserve funds.

Chairman Alexander Brown said earlier this week that the TDSB's strategy will focus on schools in neighbourhoods with the highest case counts.

The board had initially proposed to cut class sizes in all of its elementary schools, but that plan was rejected by the provincial government last week because it also would have shortened the school day by 48 minutes.

The government has insisted the length of a school day be maintained at 300 minutes.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Ontario's labour minister said Monte McNaughton will speak with the leaders of the province's teachers' unions about their concerns that the government's back to school plan violates health and safety laws.

The unions said last week they wanted a meeting with McNaughton by this Friday.

Also on Thursday, the Ontario government extended its emergency orders, saying it continues to need the tools to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

Solicitor General Sylvia Jones said that while virus cases continue to go down, the province will extend most orders until Sept. 22.

Orders restricting activities under Stage 3, governing health care worker redeployment and management of long-term care homes remain in place.

Ontario reported 76 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, along with one new death related to the virus and 76 newly resolved cases.

The total number of cases now stands at 41,048, which includes 2,793 deaths and 37,291 cases marked as resolved.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 20, 2020.

Shawn Jeffords, The Canadian Press