The Ministry of Education and Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry outlined the province's plan for students to return full-time to school this coming September, but the details have created more questions than answers.
While there are many questions after yesterday's announcement (July 29), School District 57 (SD57) Board of Education Chair Tim Bennett says they will working as best they can to work around the provincial guidelines when it comes to cohorts and other requirements, as these are uncharted waters for teachers and district staff.
"I think what the announcement [July 29] from Minister Fleming, we recognize that it has created a lot of questions for staff and parents," Bennett said in an interview with PrinceGeorgeMatters. "Now that the district knows what September is needing to look like from the ministry, we can start planning on how we are going to offer education, especially at the secondary level, within the cohort or the learning groups as described by Dr. Henry [yesterday]."
Dr. Henry said yesterday that schools can reopen safely if community transmission remains low.
She said students will be divided into “learning groups” of student and staff that primarily only interact with each other throughout the school year.
For elementary students, those groups will be made up of about 60 people, although Henry emphasized they will not all be in the same classroom.
Secondary schools will see learning groups of up to 120 people.
Henry added that despite the large size of the groups, not everyone will have contact with each other each day.
“When September comes, I ask families, employers to please continue to be flexible,” she said, acknowledging that authorities expect COVID-19 cases will occur but the goal is to minimize the risk of transmission.
As for the size difference in learning groups between elementary and secondary school students, Henry said older students will be able to better recognize if they have symptoms of COVID-19 and can practise hygiene while in large groups.
Here's a full release/breakdown on what Stage 2 will look like come September #bcpoli #bced #COVID19bc #bcCOVID19 #bc https://t.co/vtocuAyU0t
— Jess Balzer (@jessicajbalzer) July 29, 2020
"Over the next few weeks, a lot of work is going to need to be done and then communicated out to families as to what that is going to look like with regards to these learning groups," Bennett added.
Bennett says it will be a little easier at the elementary school level because of the cohort of 60 people inside one learning group.
"That's not going to be 60 kids in a class," he said. "Our normal class sizes are still in place, those are bargained in our collective agreement so what will happen is that two classes will be paired up so that they're is interactions outside of the classroom, they will be done with your 'partner class' or same learning group."
Secondary school, on the other hand, is going to be more difficult.
"Now, you're trying to coordinate four different classes in a day within that cohort in a day of 120 students."
Another area of the government back to school plan that raises questions is the physical sizing of a school building itself, trying to coordinate the exact framework of where students and staff can/will be at a time.
"It is going to look different in different buildings throughout the district," Bennett said. "This is speculation and it could be too early to say for sure, but it's going to look very different at McBride Secondary or Valemount Secondary than what it's going to look like at PGSS (Prince George Secondary School) or Duchess Park where the student enrollment at those schools are just significantly different."
"There is going to need to be some coordination around how these cohorts at the secondary level are going to look and that I think, now what we know what September needs to look like, staff will be working hard to ensure that we can welcome students on Sept. 8."
Bennett said he has faith in the administration and teachers to take the guidelines required by Dr. Henry and create the best environment throughout the district for students.
"There's a lot of questions," he added. "As a board, I think we have a lot of faith in our administration to take these guidelines and create the best systems possible to ensure not only quality education but the health and safety of our 13,000 plus students and 2,000 plus staff."
The B.C. government is also earmarking $45.6 million in additional funding to enhance cleaning regimes and hire more cleaning staff.
Minister of Education Rob Fleming said masks will not be mandatory but some of the funding will go towards providing reusable masks for instances in which physical distancing is not possible.
The BC Teachers' Federation came out saying after the announcement that the government plan 'isn't ready yet and needs more work' and misses the mark on several critical components.
“As a teacher, parent, grandparent, and President of the BCTF, I agree that we need to get back to in-person learning," BC Teachers' Federation President Teri Mooring said in a release.
"There were a lot of challenges with emergency remote learning in the spring as well as the partial return in June. But, the imperative to get students back into schools needs to be balanced with health and safety considerations in the context of how schools actually function. Based on what the government released today, their plan isn’t ready yet. It needs more work.
“The reopening needs to be safe, careful, and get the buy-in of teachers, support staff, parents, and students. If the plan is rushed or too many questions are left unanswered, it won’t be successful. Bringing everyone back all at once, even with some version of a cohort model, on the first day after the Labour Day long weekend, is too much too soon given the many unanswered questions in today’s announcement."
"A lot of excellent work has already gone into the restart planning by the steering committee and working groups, but this announcement misses the mark on several critical components and should go back to those working groups." #bced #bcpoli #covid19BC #bcCOVID19
— Jess Balzer (@jessicajbalzer) July 29, 2020
Prince George District Teachers Association (PGDTA) President Joanne Hapke told PrinceGeorgeMatters in an interview yesterday that the association wasn't pleased with the government plan put forward.
“I am really surprised at the full return of all students at 100 per cent and not even a density level within schools,” says PGDTA President Joanne Hapke.
“We are going to have everyone back in one building at the same time and it just doesn’t make sense to me that that’s the way the province has chosen to go,” says Hapke.
She says it would have been more reasonable to have students return on a staggered timeline rather than immediately at 100 per cent capacity.
“It’s going to be a challenge for all districts. We have schools in our district that have a ton of space but that is not the norm, most of our schools don’t have a lot of space.”
Hapke gives the example of grades four to 12, where there can be as many as 30 students plus teachers, physical distancing would be very difficult to achieve.
“We could have changed things up a bit and gradually changed increased the class size together but to go 100 per cent on day one it just doesn’t make sense,” says Hapke. “
“I know teachers aren’t going to be happy with this."
- with files from Hanna Petersen, PrinceGeorgeMatters, and Tyler Orton, Business In Vancouver
