THUNDER BAY - Local school boards could learn more this week on any possibilities for a regional reopening of schools across the province, but given the state of the pandemic, one local education official is not overly hopeful.
Ian MacRae, director of education with the Lakehead Public School Board, said he anticipates hearing from the province this week as to whether it will be looking at a regional approach to reopening schools before the end of the academic year.
“If they do that, we would be candidates for that, but there will be a lot of discussions prior to that,” he said. “Certainly with the variants of concerns and all the different variables, we are not particularly hopeful.”
MacRae added that the school board would also have to hear more from the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre and the Thunder Bay District Health Unit on what the status is for local schools before going forward.
“We would certainly prefer as we’ve had since day one to have all our students back to in-class learning, but we are not prepared to go that route without being able to ensure parents, staff, and students that it would be a safe environment,” he said.
Local students have been learning at home since the beginning of March due to surging COVID-19 cases in the city. While the number of cases here have been steadily declining, the province ordered all publically and privately funded schools to remain closed to in-person learning since the end of the April break.
Local school boards are also waiting to see how much COVID-19 funding will be available before finalizing annual operating budgets.
“We anticipate we will receive COVID funding. The amount is still not firm,” MacRae said.
“We hope to be able to provide a level of protection for our students that’s in excess of what the provincial guidelines have been in the past. Those protocols could change as we move into September. But we’ve always spent over and above what the expectation is to provide safe learning environments for our students, staff, and learning communities.”
Last year, the Lakehead Public School Board did utilize reserve funds to cover costs of COVID-19 protocols.
“The full COVID funding for the year has not been released to us yet because of the changing demographics of COVID across the province,” MacRae said. “We are certainly hopeful we will be fully funded for all of the protocols that we will be putting in place to ensure the safe learning environments.”
The Ministry of Education announced earlier this month that virtual learning will remain an option for students who prefer to remain home next September.
The province has not released the full details of how that will be implemented yet and MacRae said any form of online learning should be delivered by local educators and not a third party.
“It should be delivered from classroom teachers who have the expertise and knowledge from those students and their needs to be successful,” he said.
But the goal for next year is to have all students back in the classroom and MacRae said the school board is prepared to spend to the level it feels is appropriate to ensure all schools are safe.
It also appears that the majority of students would also like to be back in the classroom based on surveys conducted in recent weeks, with only three per cent of respondents preferring the online model.
“We anticipate if we can ensure the learning environments are at the standard we feel are acceptable that number will be even lower,” MacRae said. “There is no substitute for in-class learning and instruction provided by classroom teachers.”