North Vancouver parents and students are getting their first look what the return to classrooms will look like on Sept. 10.
The North Vancouver School District released their high-level plan on Aug. 21 with more details ironed out closer to the first bell.
“We’re excited to have our kids come back. We’re excited to have the laughter back into the playground and learning taking place in classrooms,” said superintendent Mark Pearmain.
District staff are ready to apply what they learned when about 75 per cent of elementary students returned to class in June this year, including new protocols for physical distancing; floor markings; handwashing stations; deep cleaning; staggering start, break and dismissal times; and limiting access to common areas.
“All of that new kind of procedures that we have to follow just generally in society, we’re mimicking and putting it into the school,” he said.
For students from kindergarten to Grade 7, things will look much the same as they did in June, Pearmain said. All students will return to in-class instruction in “learning groups” of 20 to 29, plus their teacher/support staff.
Pearmain said there will be more use of outdoor learning and classes will not be held in common spaces like libraries, music rooms, computer labs or the gym. Instead, those teachers will visit classes individually while wearing personal protective equipment if they can’t keep physical distance.
Elementary teachers will be required to wear masks in high traffic areas outside the learning group but students that age are not.
Things get a bit more complicated for students in Grades 8 and 9. They still will be in groups of up to 30 but they will be on the quadmester system – two classes a day, 140 minutes each for a period of about 10 weeks. They will be mostly with the same cohorts all day.
For seniors in grades 10-12, they too will be doing quadmesters but they will split into a hybrid system for the afternoons wherein half of the students will be doing online learning from home while the other half will split up into smaller groups for in-class time. The two groups will alternate which days they are physically in the school.
Face masks will be required to be worn by secondary students and staff in common areas.
Although they will be mixing with kids from outside their learning group, the smaller class sizes in the afternoon subcohorts should be able to maintain physical distancing, Pearmain said.
Some parents may prefer smaller class sizes, Pearmain acknowledged, but he said there are only so many teachers and only so much physical classroom space available. And North Van’s plan includes smaller groups than what provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has OK’d – up to 120 students per learning group.
If a household member of a student or teacher gets diagnosed with COVID-19, the school district expects them to follow the directives of Vancouver Coastal Health officials. What those directives will be though isn’t clear.
“We will always say to all of our staff and our students that if you are feeling sick, or if you’re showing symptoms, please stay home, don’t come to school, in the abundance of caution for others,” Pearmain said.
If a student must go into quarantine for two weeks, the school district has a plan in place, similar to how schools operated after the end of spring break.
“Their education would continue through the Microsoft Teams platform and work would be provided as well as support provided for the student over that time until they can come back to school,” he said.
If there are more widespread outbreaks or if the province reinstates stricter protocols, the return to school plan has contingences to quickly reduce the amount of time spent in the classroom, with learning going online.
Pearmain acknowledged a lot of secondary parents and students would be more comfortable with that option being made available from the outset, so he said the district will be conducting a survey.
“Certainly, there have been some voices that we’ve been hearing but we don’t have a firm handle on that. We’re working with the ministry in terms of seeing if there’s going to be another option provided,” he said.
There is no distributed (distance) learning program for K-7 in North Vancouver.
The school district already had existing plans in place for immunocompromised students or students with immunocompromised family members, so they can still get their education.
One of the biggest items left lingering is the secondary timetables. Those normally take three and a half months to assemble, but staff are now having to do it in three weeks. The same goes for class placement in K-7.
They’re also trying to figure out how to safely run extracurricular like band, Pearmain said.
“It will be different,” he said. “The intention is to ensure that we have as much of that as possible within our new normal.”
French immersion, international baccalaureate and advanced placement programs will still go ahead. And, for now, academy programs will still be running, although Pearmain said there will be some scheduling challenges and trade-offs.
“If parents don’t want to be part of it or if they want to opt out, there are full refunds for them at this point in time,” he said. “If [the programs] start to get to the numbers where they’re just not viable for the provider or it’s not going to work out for kids, we’ll look at postponing them for the year.”
The return to school, much like the pandemic itself, may be a source of emotional stress for students, Pearmain said, but he added that schools have always strived to provide support networks with friends, teachers and counsellors and a degree of normalcy.
“It’s an actual safety anchor for our community,” he said. “Teachers are amazing individuals when it comes to understanding the social emotional supports that their students require. … We know that there is obviously some angst out there. But we also know there’s some excitement for kids to be able to come back into the building. So we’re expecting a strong return, and we’re excited to welcome them back.”
