The Ontario government has turned down a request from the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) to maintain the masking rule in classrooms when students return to school from March break next week.  On March 11, TDSB chair Alexander Brown wrote to Ontario chief medical officer Dr. Kieran Moore to ask for more time to adjust health measures in schools, after he announced that Ontario will lift the mask mandate in most public settings including schools on March 21. “To remove such measures like masking, distancing, cohorting, and daily screening protections at the same time would go against our multiple layer approach to protecting our school communities from the spread of COVID-19,” Brown wrote in a letter, which was also addressed Education Minister Stephen Lecce and Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa.  Brown cited the board’s duty to “serve students and staff that are immune-compromised, medically-fragile and at higher risk of having …