Plan for return to class in the works
Officials trying to come up with conditions to allow some students to safely go back
The education ministry, teachers and other school officials are holding meetings to figure out “the underlying conditions” that will allow the safe, slow and staggered reopening of classrooms in June for a limited number of students in Kindergarten to Grade 5.
“Basic things like PPE and social distancing, and processes around how to deal with illness. These are some of the issues that need to be consistent across the province,” B.C. Teachers’ Federation president Teri Mooring said Sunday.
“This is intended to bring a subset of students back into the system in a safe and controlled manner.”
Premier John Horgan said Friday that a concrete plan will be unveiled at the end of May to allow K-to-5 students to voluntarily re-enrol into the school system in June. Older students will continue at-home learning for the rest of this academic year.
If B.C. continues to have a decline in coronavirus cases, Horgan has said K-to-7 classrooms may fully reopen in the fall, while high school students may have a combination of in-class and virtual instruction in September.
When asked if younger students could be in classrooms by the first week of June, Mooring answered: “I expect in the coming week we will have a more clear indication about the dates. I think it is also important between now and then we pay close attention to the health data.”
Some of the issues to be hammered out by officials, she said, include: how to monitor the health of kids coming to school and the response plan if they feel sick; capping the number of students allowed in one classroom to maintain a safe distance; creating a schedule that both keeps enrolment numbers low, such as students only attending on alternating days, and allows time for daily deep-cleaning; and the availability of masks for teachers who are concerned that students are not keeping a social distance.
“We know in schools that social distancing is going to be a challenge,” Mooring said. “PPE needs to be absolutely available to teachers who chose to use it.”
Learnings from other countries that have reopened schools indicate that “a fair number of parents” may choose to keep their kids at home in June for a variety of reasons, she said. These include underlying health issues, concern about catching the virus, or the fact that families had organized their lives to accommodate home-schooling for the rest of the year.
Also, teachers cannot instruct some students in class while also providing virtual lessons to those still at home. So, it is likely some teachers will be in classrooms while others will continue online, but those details have yet to be worked out, Mooring said.
Stephanie Higginson, president of the B.C. School Trustees’ Association, said Sunday that any decision to allow even more students to return to school will start to be made this week, and will be based on advice from provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry.
“Currently districts are planning for it, and trying to get all their ducks in a row,” said Higginson, a trustee with the Nanaimo school district.
Returning to class, she said, was an important option to offer some families: Some parents, especially those in financial hardship, will need to send kids to school so they can get back to work. And some students might be falling behind their peers because of a lack of technology to do online learning or because of the stability school provides.
In addition, Higginson said health modelling indicates that access to schools could expand and contract over the next year and a half, depending on B.C.’s number of COVID-19 cases.