The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Schools to get $21.5m computer upgrade
“We heard from parents, students and teachers that access to computers was an issue during last year’s lockdown so we are ensuring that any students who need a computer during an online-learning period will receive one.”
Zach Churchill Education minister
The Education Department announced a $21.5-million investment in new computers and technology Monday to support Nova Scotia's students and teachers as concern mounted about potential school closures because of COVID-19 exposures.
“For children to learn they need access to computers and for teachers to teach, they need strong computer support,” Education Minister Zach Churchill said in the virtual announcement.
“We're putting in place the technological backbone so our students can continue to learn and succeed during the pandemic and to strengthen our ability to provide digital learning once this pandemic is over,” Churchill said.
The $21.5-million injection, available from the federal Safe Return to Class Fund, will be used to buy up to 32,000 school computers and to upgrade school servers and WI-FI across the province.
“We heard from parents, students and teachers that access to computers was an issue during last year's lockdown so we are ensuring that any students who need a computer during an online-learning period will receive one,” Churchill said.
On Friday, the province announced that two Halifaxarea schools with confirmed cases of COVID-19 will be shut down for two weeks as a precaution.
Students at Graham Creighton Junior High in Cherry Brook and Auburn Drive High in Cole Harbour will be taught online until the schools reopen, which is set for Dec. 7.
“In terms of how the process works, if there is an identified positive case in our schools, Public Health immediately comes in, they conduct an investigation, they do conduct tracing and they provide an assessment on the risk of spread, they provide us with advice, direction on the best way to respond,” Churchill said.
“We have flexibility in our responses now to COVID19,” the minister said. “We intend on, as we did this week, responding locally to a local issue. This week we had three cases identified in two of our schools. Those schools, it was decided, will be shut down for two weeks. We have a range of options which include sending close contacts home, to a blended learning model where the older students would learn from home and the other students would then be dispersed among the additional space where they can fully distance and we can move to sending everybody home.”
Churchill said the option taken will depend on where the virus is identified.
“If it's located in a particular community, we can respond there, if there is a broader spread in a family of schools, we can have our response focused on that family of schools, if it's a region, we can respond regionally and if there is a provincial stay-athome order, then we move to a provincial response. It is dependent on what the virus is doing, where it is and what the directives of Public Health are.”
Churchill said there have not been cases identified at any schools aside from Graham Creighton and Auburn Drive.
He said the department is looking at options, including extending the Christmas break, depending on the advice of Public Health.
Meanwhile, the minister said servers and Wi-fi in Nova Scotia's schools “need to be upgraded,” especially in rural parts of the province.
“These investments will help set up our schools for success this year and in future years.”
Susan Kelley, regional executive director of education in the Cape Breton regional centre, said technology has become an important tool in teaching and learning and computers are used in almost every school classroom by students, teachers and staff.
“We use computers to take attendance, to record marks, register students, to send alerts to parents and staff and the list goes on,” Kelley said. “Students are working as individuals, in small groups or the whole class. Reading, writing lab reports, researching, solving mathematical problems, doing science experiments, testing fitness levels, writing, all of these things can happen and that list is endless.”
Allen Whittaker, lead of the technology advantage project at the Tri-county regional centre, said the funding will help with essential server capacity.
“At any one time at a high school, 1,000 devices can be connected to the internet,” Whittaker said. “Fifteen years ago, that was probably an inconceivable idea to have that much bandwidth going in and out of a school.”
Whittaker said schools need to keep pace.
“By putting in upgraded servers, upgraded wireless access, we will be able to do that and future-proof our schools for the ever-changing environment of technology.”
Churchill said the province's Internet for Nova Scotia initiative identified 88,000 under-served homes and businesses in the province. The first round of the program will bring high-speed internet to 42,000 homes and business and the second phase will connect an additional 32,000 customers, he said.
The minister said 24,000 computers will have been acquired by next month through the Safe Return to Class program and 8,000 more will be added in the new year.