What the upcoming school year will look like has become a little clearer as most School District of Mystery Lake (SDML) schools have made their reopening plans public as of Aug. 24.
Students at the district’s six elementary schools will attend school in-person five days a week unless they have a medical exemption to allow them to participate in distance learning, though many of them will only attend one day in the first week of school as teachers and staff work the kinks out of their school reopening plans and make necessary adjustments.
At R.D. Parker Collegiate, students will be divided into two groups based on the first letter of their last name (A-K in Group A and L-Z in Group B). Group A students will attend only one day in the first week (Sept. 8), while Group B will attend Sept. 9-11. In subsequent weeks, Group A will attend class in-person on Mondays and Tuesdays and participate in remote/distance learning the rest of the week. For Group B, Monday to Wednesday will be remote/distance learning days, with in-person instruction on Thursdays and Fridays.
All schools have suspended sports, clubs and group activities for at least the first month of school, though music classes at the elementary schools and band and choir classes at RDPC will still go ahead, with additional distancing requirements in place.
Other measures being used to try to lower the risk of students and staff being exposed to coronavirus include limiting visitors to schools during school hours, instituting occupancy limits in bathrooms, ensuring extra sanitation in shared spaces such as computer labs and libraries, and staggering start times and recess times to limit contact between students. Some schools are dividing their students into cohorts of a single grade, while others will have cohorts with two or three grades in each.
Students in Grade 4 and up will be required to wear masks at times when distances of two metres between students can not be maintained and hallway lockers at RDPC and elementary schools will not be available for student use.
Cathy Pellizzaro, president of the Thompson Teachers’ Association (TTA), which represents teachers at SDML’s seven schools, said the district reopening plan put out Aug. 14 looked comprehensive, and that the union appreciated the province instituting mandatory masks for students from Grade 4 to Grade 12 when physical distancing can’t one maintained.
“Physical distancing can be a huge challenge in schools,” she said in an email. “Even without proper social distancing, the masks will be on.”
Teaching in-person during a pandemic will present new challenges for teachers, who previously had to figure out how to deliver their courses online when schools were closed during the last three-and-a-half months of the 2019-2020 school year.
“This year will be one of the most challenging we’ve faced,” Pellizzaro said. “But Thompson teachers will always do a professional job of educating our students. And if something is standing in our way, we’ll let it be known.”
The provincial government announced Aug. 24 that it was making $100 million available for schools to cope with increased costs as a result of pandemic precautions. It will be distributed on a per-student basis, with some held in reserve to be used in the case of emerging challenges. Some of the costs it might go to include providing masks and other protective equipment for students and school staff, increasing the number of custodians and cleaning supplies at schools, increasing bus transportation and ensuring substitute teachers and other staff are available.
“We know that our education system needs to be ready to deal with today’s pandemic reality as students and staff return to the classroom, and our government is delivering the financial support to help school divisions meet that need,” said Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen in a press release on Monday.
Manitoba Teachers Society (MTS) vice-president Nathan Martindale said that extra money for education is helpful, but that the the MTS hasn’t yet seen a plan to recruit and retain additional substitute teachers and that reducing class sizes would be the most effective way to reduce there risk of the novel coronavirus spreading among teachers, students and staff.
“Physical distancing is consistently pointed to as the best way to limit the spread of the virus,” he said. “Two metres is the recommendation followed by the community, yet in schools, a one-metre distance is somehow acceptable. It makes no sense to have a lower safety standard in schools. Our schools should be the safest places.”
Pellizzaro said ensuring there are adequate substitutes to cover teacher absences was sometimes a problem even before the COVID-19 pandemic and likely to become more of one now.
“We do want the district to make sure there are more substitutes available,” she said.
She also said the TTA would also like to see smaller class sizes to assist social distancing and improve safety for everyone.
