Chinook finalizing policies and plans for school start on September 8

The Chinook School Division is preparing for the start of a new school year like no other, with students returning to class on September 8 following a five month hiatus in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Chinook Board of Education approved a policy on COVID-19 as it regards to student and staff illness at their August 24 meeting. And while division plans could evolve in response to changing COVID numbers, this policy provides guidelines on how to deal with staff or students who become ill with the virus.

“At the core is keeping kids and staff safe and engaged in school, because we all recognize how important school is academically, socially and emotionally,” Chinook’s Director of Education Kyle Mcintyre said after the policy was approved last week. Similar policies will be passed by all school divisions in Saskatchewan. The focus of the policy surrounds the health and safety of students and staff during COVID-19, and outlines the protocols and expectations which will be followed as the Board of Education and employers.

“That particular policy really outlines all the procedures, the protocols, the expectations regarding sanitization, and physical distancing, and hand hygiene, and masking and staff illness. So really that policy sets the foundation or the umbrella for all activities that are going to be involved with the re-opening of Chinook schools.”

Chinook teachers returned to school for the the first time on Thursday, August 27 to begin the final steps of a return to classes. They participated in meetings to look at division priorities and school priorities and school needs for the upcoming year.

Mcintyre noted that teachers will be challenged by the diverse needs of students who are returning to class with various educational challenges brought on by the early end of the 2019-2020 school year. Students will be at different places on the learning continuum, so teachers need to assess what students know and don’t know, and what do about learning strategies.

“Academically finding out what our students know. What they don’t know. And how are we going to address the gaps that some students might have from supplemental learning. So that’s going to be a large focus in terms of professional development.”

“There’s always traditionally a summer lag when kids return to school in the fall. Of course this is going to be more than a summer - its five months. So there are going to be some gaps. But there were also some children during supplemental learning that took the learning outcomes and worked at their own pace and completed all the outcomes and really enjoyed that self directed learning. So we’re going to have students all over the map, and we normally do. It may be more accentuated this year because of the time we were away from school.”

Teachers are also learning new COVID routines, procedures, expectations and protocols.

“We have a number of procedures that are going to be different that we have to teach our staff so that they can teach children when they come into the school,” he said.

“Schools are going to have staggered entrances. Schools are going to have hand wash and sanitization stations at each door. We’re going to assign doors to respective student grades in the larger schools. We’re going to be looking at reducing cohorts in schools that are high density. So there’s a lot of stuff that has to occur behind the scenes so that we can prepare for receiving our students on September 8.”

Chinook recently completed a Learning Options Survey to gauge how many students would be returning to class and how many would be accessing on-line learning options.

“We knew that some people would be uncomfortable coming back to school, so we asked parents what would be their preferred learning option,” Mcintyre said.

“I think we had about 93.4 per cent of all our students, and the parents of course are completing the survey, want to be back in school with protective provisions.”

“We have roughly about 4.3 per cent that wanted to continue to learn from home because they just weren’t confident that school was going to be as safe as they want it to be.”

“So truly in that survey we also got a lot of commentary from parents, and parents really acknowledged the importance of school as an institution for their children’s well being, for their social, emotional and academic health. And in the survey a lot of folks really acknowledged the work of our teachers and support staff, because not everyone had an enjoyable learning-fromhome experience. Not every parent was able to stay at home and work with their children, some people had to continue to work. Some parents who maybe struggled in school had difficulty supporting their kids.”

“So I think our survey is kind of reflective of where families are at. I think a lot of families enjoyed the at home learning. I think they enjoyed spending more time as a family and more time with their children. But the other side of that is most people are happy that we’re going to try to get back to some kind of a new normal and that kids are going to go back to school where they’re going to connect with their friends, they’re going to connect with support staff, and most importantly they’re going to connect with their teachers.”

Chinook is also challenged by the fact they have 64 schools spread across the

Southwest, so the return to class will look different at the various schools.

“Each school is unique. Each school in diverse. Each school has it’s own unique culture - has it’s own physical building nuances. So there are certain areas that we want to see in every school, but we know it’s going to look a little bit different,” he conceded.

“It’s going to look a little bit different in every school because when you think of some of our rural schools they aren’t fully utilized in terms of space. So we can physical distance very well in a school like Val Marie that was probably built for four times the population that’s in that school. We can physical distance very well in Eastend or Frontier where again the school populations are not what they were 15 years ago.”

“In some of the high density schools in the City like Swift Current Comp. or Ecole

Centennial, we have to be creative with our instructional space. We have to add maybe some additional staff. At the Comp., we’re splitting grade cohorts in half so that we have smaller cohorts so that we can limit the intermingling between kids so that we can do a better job at physical distancing and contact tracing if someone gets sick.”

However, a change in the mind set and practices of families in attending school while sick will be the most significant change.

“Probably one of the biggest changes in every school that we’re going to see, regardless of whether its public or Hutterian, is the whole attendance and illness. If a staff member is sick we do not want them coming to school. If children are sick we certainly do not want them coming to school. That’s probably going to be one of the biggest changes that we’re going to see.”