Schools failing students

Re: Hard lessons for parents, Barbara Kay, April 29

Barbara Kay cites two anecdotes: a nimble independent school responding with prompt excellence to the online challenge compared with the slow and dismal performance of the massively supported public system. Granted, two anecdotes do not, by themselves, prove what occurs in other schools. But if the recent teacher strikes are not enough, this is another good reason to support independent schools. Give parents a real choice. Syl Gerritsma, St. Catharines, Ont.

As a parent of five children in four different private parochial schools and a teacher in a parochial school myself, I must agree with Barbara Kay’s characterization of the speed and quality with which long-distance learning was implemented for my children. They have a full day of lessons, tutorials and activities all planned and posted online one week in advance. In fact, the school administration where two of my children attend gave Chromebooks programmed to them that had direct links to their Zoom classes complete with downloadable worksheets.

Lest you think these parochial schools are flush with cash — they are not. Many struggle to keep up with expenses since many parents cannot afford to pay tuition and the schools receive no public funds. In fact, one school is shutting down one of its campuses this year due to lack of funds.

Why is there such a disparity between the public and private/parochial schools in response to COVID-19? The answer lies in “mission.” The boards, administrations and teachers of these schools see the education of our children as their life mission. Nothing stands in their way of educating the next generation. No pandemic or lack of pay increase will prevent our teachers from teaching.

The Ministry of Education, school boards and teachers should take a page out of our parochial school system playbook. I pity the public school students of 2019-2020: their school year has been lost forever. Selfish strikes by teachers during the first half of the school year (one of the issues being internet learning, ironically) and a lackadaisical approach by school administrations to adapt to long-distance learning during this pandemic have caused thousands of students to lose a precious year of their school experience. A loss of time they will never recover.

Chani Aryeh-Bain, Toronto