Soon after Premier Doug Ford announced earlier this month that all public schools in Ontario would be closed for two weeks — with private schools following suit when the province went into an official state of emergency — many experts began to speculate that school would end up being cancelled for much longer, possibly even until the end of the academic year.

Now, it appears that such predictions were correct.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce is set to announce that elementary and high school in Ontario will stay closed until "at least May," Global News reports.

This is in contrast to the original April 6 date that students were due to return back to classrooms — a date Ford himself later admitted wasn't realistic given the growing COVID-19 outbreak.

"Ontario schools will be closed at least until May" https://t.co/YTKuSQbrOd

— Matthew (Matkin) (@EveryBrokenWave) March 31, 2020

The potential date for schools in the province to re-open has been tentatively moved multiple times, once to April 20 and again to May 4, though it has the potential to be moved even later if the coronavirus situation warrants.

It's unclear how and when students will be able to make up their weeks of missed classes, and to what extent there will be a move to some type of e-learning platform, like the province's post-secondary institutions have already implemented.

Lecce is due to speak on the topic and provide further details at a press conference at 1 p.m. today.