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NESD looking at what a return to school will look like

EAST CENTRAL — Class will not look the same when students return in September as it did in March – that is, if they return to a physical classroom.
NESD

EAST CENTRAL — Class will not look the same when students return in September as it did in March – that is, if they return to a physical classroom.

“We’re looking at scenarios of possibly smaller groups of students returning into classrooms, or combinations of in school and online, or remote learning, but we’re waiting for direction there,” said Don Rempel, the North East School Division’s director of education.

The NESD is expecting information to come from the provincial emergency response planning team around scenarios that school divisions can plan for regarding school reopening.

“The school classes being discontinued and wind down or shut down was pretty clean and was done over a couple of weeks, very efficiently. Now we have to find a way to reopen schools and put protocols and safety plans in place to make sure that we can protect our schools and our communities against any potential spread of the virus.”

Beginning on March 30, teachers began collecting information from students and parents in regard to supplemental learning opportunities.

Parents could choose to participate in supplemental learning or opt out without an academic penalty being applied to students who wish not to continue in teacher supported learning.

“It’s a family decision if they want to participate in that learning through the end of June, and we’ve just been tracking how many contacts our teachers have made with students on a weekly basis.”

 

  Students reached out to 0 times Students reached out to 1-2 times Students reached out to 3+ times
April 27 to May 1 1,321 3,638 2,661
May 4 to 8 1,695 3,295 2,174
May 11 to 15 1,663 2,986 2,040

Rempel said the division is encouraged by the consistency of the teachers, but are seeing a decline in the number of contacts over time as they approach June.

“Our information is that our teachers are really working hard to keep students engaged and try to provide the support for student learning,” he said.

“We also noticed, because of the nature of the students being at home and not being in regular routines and having other things going on in their lives, it’s a challenge for some students and some families to have the regular contact with their teacher that you would have had with a face-to-face contact in the school.”

Rempel said they want families and students to be engaged in learning as much as possible to the end of June to be prepared for next year.

“Whatever our reopening looks like, we will be into the full curriculum. It won’t be supplemental learning or less than full curricular outcomes that’s expected for students. We want to make sure our students keep their basic skills intact.”

The NESD recently sent out a survey through an online tool called thoughtexchange to parents and guardians regarding their supplemental learning program.

Rempel said some information provided from the survey, the NESD feels the regular contact between teachers and students, as well as the feedback on student work has been valued by the families.

“We were quite happy with the amount of participation,” Rempel said.

“Two very affirming themes, that the contact through virtual means has been very much appreciated and has helped sustain relationships; and then that the feedback on student learning and the regular contact between teachers and students has really helped keep the learning as the forefront of those decisions between students and teachers as well rather it rest all on the family.”

As of the end of May, NESD staff have been given updated guidelines for doing work inside of the buildings when necessary, such as bus mechanics, caretakers and technology support.

“We just have a policy to make sure we have safe environments, that there is social distancing in place,” Rempel said. “We have a sign-in system that will let people know who is in each building at what time and that there are accommodations in the building to have enough spaces between workstations.”