Back-to-school in Quebec: life-and-death jitters a reality

Educators in Gatineau and the Outaouais returned to elementary schools Monday, anxious about next week’s arrival of hundreds of pupils in a vastly changed academic climate.

Since the Quebec government announced on April 27 that primary schools would reopen May 11 to voluntary attendance, administrators have been scrambling to physically reorganize classrooms and realign teaching assignments.

The government announced a class limit of 15 students, physical distancing of two metres between desks, restrictions on how recess and lunch periods are handled and the closure of shared space like play structures and possibly gymnasiums.

Not only is it a tall order to orchestrate with only two weeks’ preparation, but there is concern about the safety of staff and students at time when the COVID-19 pandemic is still killing people every day. (The threat is serious enough that both older and health-compromised teachers are being excused from returning to the classroom this month.)

“It’s unrealistic,” said Alain Guy, chairman of the Western Québec School Board, which has 30 anglophone schools and vocational centres and about 8,700 students in its vast territory.

He said staff have been working overtime trying to reconfigure teaching spaces, while worrying about whether teachers should be wearing protective equipment, like gowns or masks.

The provincial association of nine English school boards is so concerned about the early return to class that — for health and safety reasons — it suggested boards may not comply with the government’s “premature” directive.

When asked if he could guarantee schools would be ready for students next Monday, Guy said it was “a hard call to make today” because plans are still taking shape.

“(The minister is) asking almost the impossible.” Guy said board commissioners are awaiting an update on Wednesday about school readiness.

The board is in the dicey position of having a legal duty to provide a safe environment for staff and students and yet follow a provincial directive that might undermine that very basic goal. Quebec has been the worst-hit province in this pandemic, with more than half of Canada’s cases and fatalities (over 2,200 as the week got underway).

A public notice to all of Quebec’s school communities tells students they may be in a different classroom with a different teacher and warns that common rooms like libraries or science rooms will likely be closed. Hands are to be washed while entering the school and before and after recess. School buses are to hold one child per seat.

At some schools in Montreal, students are being told they must eat lunch at their desks, stay in their two-metre bubble, and not use water fountains or swap school equipment with other students. Parents will not be allowed inside the building.

Some parents, meanwhile, are grappling with whether to send their children back to school — particularly given that regular high school classes are cancelled until August and many of them cannot legally return to work in Gatineau or Ottawa.

“It’s a mixed bag” of reactions, said Corinne Payne, director general of Quebec’s federation of parent committees. She said some parents felt pressured that schools — for planning purposes — wanted rapid responses as to whether children were returning on May 11, or staying home.

“We’re asking parents to make a decision with the life of the thing that is most precious to them, and that’s their children. It’s a very emotional decision and we can’t hide that,” she said, noting some parents felt they lacked enough information or expertise.

“I mean, we’ve all been hiding in our houses, right?”

Other parents, she said, know from their own lived experience how difficult it can be to keep five, six or seven-year-olds a minimum of two metres apart for several hours a day.

Guy and other school board leaders, meanwhile, think the boards should have the ultimate decision about when they can provide a safe environment for the whole school community.

“I don’t think that the government realizes that, sitting in Quebec City, they have no idea what is happening in a region. We’re in the best position to make that call.”

He said he also didn’t want to put the board in the position where it was trying to access sizable inventories of personal protective equipment (for hundreds of teachers) that would be best reserved for front-line workers.

Ontario schools, and it is a timeline not lost on border communities, are closed until at least May 31.