It’s been a difficult two weeks back to school for students, parents and teachers in Prince George.
This September greeted everyone with new challenges including new learning groups, new health and safety protocols, a new semester system for secondary students and, to top it all off, a decline in enrollment.
Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, this means that School District 57 (SD57) is expecting a funding shortfall of $3.2 million from the Education Ministry.
SD57 is also short 425 full-time K-12 students for the 2020-21 school year as the virus is causing parents to switch their kids to online learning or homeschooling.
This reduction of students has also led the Prince George district to combine divisions and reassign teachers to new roles in distributed learning or teachers teaching on call (TTOC) until positions become available.
“Most teachers did not return to work rested from a glorious summer of sunshine and travel. I’m sure most returned wondering where our summer went and add to that the anxiety on what are we actually returning to,” said Prince George District Teachers Association (PGDTA) president Joanne Hapke during an address to the Board of Education at last night’s public meeting (Sept. 29).
“As teachers are working through this stressful time and finding ways to make the restart work for the students, the news that enrollment is down begins to trickle out and now the conversation quickly turns from hand sanitizers to surplus teachers.”
She says many teachers went from excitedly planning their classrooms to packing-it-up as they wait for new assignments.
“The collapsing of divisions has had an effect of many teachers and students in this district,” said Hapke.
“Many teachers saw their class size increase overnight.”
She says as teachers were just getting a handle on ensuring COVID-19 guidelines were followed in their classrooms and that students stayed within their cohorts, some teachers found themselves having to add more desks into an already tight classroom and reconfigure spaces for new students that are now enrolled into their classrooms, while still having to meet the health and safety protocols for their schools.
“To say teachers are exhausted already would be an understatement, yet we all know that over the last two decades, teachers have found ways to work through adverse conditions and do what they can to support the students in their classrooms.”
Andrea Beckett, Chair of the District Parent Advisory Committee (DPAC), also spoke at the board meeting to address the division changes and the importance of parental input.
In a Sept. 26 statement to parents and students, DPAC had expressed frustration with how the reorganization of classrooms had been communicated by the district.
“Over the last while, it has felt that parent input and feedback has been an afterthought as the board made decisions. However, as I stand here, I believe we can say as the DPAC that a new path forward has been found after the open honest and lengthy conversation that we have had with senior administration and the board over the last couple of days,” said Beckett.
“Parents and PACs have a unique perspective to offer this board and this district. We are the only ones that can offer a true view of how district decisions can impact families and children and the ground level.”
Later in the meeting, SD57 Superintendent Anita Richardson noted the district was returning this fall into a situation that was less-than-ideal.
“This has been the start of the school year like no other we have experienced,” said Richardson, who also took the time to thank teachers and the partner groups for their hard work over the summer and the last two weeks.
Richardson said SD57 currently has 13,314 students registered, which is a decline of 440 students compared to Sept. 30, 2019.
In 2019, the district had 10 homeschool students registered; this year has 28.
“The most significant increase would be noted in our Distributed Learning Program. In 2019, at this time, we had 98 students registered from K-12 in our Distributed Learning Program. At this time, we have 387. That is an increase of 289 students in our distributed learning program and those numbers will likely continue to shift upwards until of our final reporting period at the end of Sept. 30.”
