Preliminary data gathered by two of the Sudbury district’s four school boards suggests that most children will be returning to the classroom to learn this fall.
In the government’s reopening plan, which was announced by Premier Doug Ford and Education Minister Stephen Lecce on July 30, parents were given the option to enroll their children in remote delivery if they were not comfortable with their children returning to school.
The Rainbow District School Board (RDSB) and the Conseil scolaire public du Grand Nord de l’Ontario (CSPGNO) are currently in the process of surveying parents to determine how many students will be learning from home.
Both school boards report high in-class enrollment, although the final results of each survey will not be in until sometime next week.
“We are right in the middle of doing our pre-registration right now. I’ve got about 50 per cent of our parents that have responded to the survey so far. Around eight per cent of those parents want to do virtual learning for their child in September, and 92 per cent want their children in class,” said Marc Gauthier, director of education at CSPGNO.
Norm Blaseg, director of education at RDSB, said that around 86 per cent of students will be returning to the classroom on Sept. 8.
“Our parent survey will be completed on Aug. 21. I don’t know what the exact numbers will be yet, but I know it was the vast majority – well over 80 per cent – were choosing to do face-to-face education this fall,” he said.
Both RDSB and CSPGNO released their school board’s reopening plans last week, along with the Sudbury Catholic District School Board and the Conseil scolaire catholique du Nouvel-Ontario.
Each reopening plan prioritizes health and safety by detailing enhanced cleaning measures, daily self-screening, the use of masks and other PPE, and the monitoring and responding to reports of COVID-19 symptoms.
The capacity for physical distancing has been a major concern for both parents and teachers’ unions throughout the province because the government’s reopening plan did not require changes to class size for schools in Northern Ontario.
School boards are trying to address this issue through physical changes to classrooms, by removing furniture, using Plexiglas dividers to separate desks and prohibiting the use of lockers, for example, and by cohorting students to limit their contact with each other.
Elementary school students will be limited to about 50 direct contacts per day, while secondary students will be limited to 100 students as per the ministry’s guidelines.
How school boards will accomplish this exactly depends on the student population they will be serving, the capacity of each school, and the size of the school itself.
For example, secondary students attending Rainbow schools will have a different timetable. Students will take four subjects in the first semester, but they will only take two classes per day, to complete a total of four credits.
“We do have some schools that are running at 100-per-cent capacity right now if they were to open today without an online component. There are probably five or six of those schools in our district, and we have to take a close look at those,” said Blaseg.
“Then, we will look at individual classes in schools that might have some space issues. That is a little more challenging for us to address. All of this will be determined based on how many students are opting for online learning.”
Smaller school boards, like CSPGNO, tend to have smaller attendance and smaller classrooms.
“I have a school in Marathon that has 20 students and four staff – a lot of our classrooms are already small classrooms. Class sizes will become smaller as some students opt for distance learning, and we are going to remove furniture in the classrooms to create more space,” said Gauthier.
“We do have some bigger classrooms, too, and we’re looking into dividing those rooms to allow for smaller cohorts, but we have to work within the budget that has been allotted to us.”
Of the $309 million in funding announced by the provincial government, which was meant to help Ontario schools hire extra staff (including nurses and custodial staff) and purchase PPE and cleaning supplies, little has been available for schools in the North.
Gauthier said that CSPGNO did not receive any of that funding at all, while Blaseg said that the RDSB received a small percentage.
Both school boards are considering using the permitted two per cent of their reserve funds to help cover some of the costs related to COVID-19.
“We have already budgeted to go into one per cent of our reserves as was allowed by the ministry. Now, we are allowed two per cent, and we haven’t discussed yet if we are going to use that,” said Gauthier.
“Chances are, we are going to use that $600,000 more. If we access two per cent of our reserve funds, we will have access to $1.2 million. Right now, we’re spending a lot of money on equipment. For example, we’ve bought machines to filter the air for rooms that don’t have windows. We are putting Plexiglas on tables to separate the students, and we have also put Plexiglas in the cafeteria. Just with that, we’ve probably already spent about $100,000.”
Blaseg said that if Rainbow board does use their reserve funds, they will probably use those dollars to hire extra staff.
“Right now, we already have our staff in place, but that’s based on face-to-face learning with a full return. We will have to wait and see how many students are opting for distance learning,” he said.
“We might have to do something that we call reorganization – if the reorganization falls short in terms of meeting what we need to provide the services we typically do, then we will have to dip into those reserves. The data will dictate that.”
While each school board has published their reopening plan on their websites, they are reminding parents that the plans will change.
“The situation is extremely fluid, and our staff are quite resilient in that we are constantly revisiting and revising our plans. At the end of the day, we’re just trying to make it so that it’s safe for our kids and our staff. Our primary focus is on health and safety. Second, we will make sure that children are getting a great curriculum,” said Blaseg.
Gauthier likened the reopening plan to “building a plan in mid-flight.”
“I am not blaming anybody here – it’s just that the situation is evolving so rapidly and there is new information every day and every week,” he said.
“We have to adapt to all this new information, so it’s a lot of hard work. It’s hard to have the perfect plan right away. The plan we have up on the website right now probably won’t be the same plan in three weeks, but we are keeping the health and safety of students and staff as our priority.”
Colleen Romaniuk is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter with The Sudbury Star. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the federal government.
