The Sea to Sky School District (SD48) has released a detailed back-to-school plan, but not all parents are comfortable sending their kids to class on Sept. 10.
Meredith Gardner, chair of the District Parent Advisory Council (DPAC), has registered her son, a Grade 12 student in Pemberton, for in-school learning, but will not send him back until she feels comfortable.
“I’m registering my kid for school—there’s a plan in place—but he’s not going back until we feel safe,” Gardner said. “I do believe, personally, that there is a gap between what the Ministry of Education has mandated for back to school and what most parents feel would be safe for their kids at this point.”
One way school will look different this year is the implementation of a new quarter system for Grades 10 to 12. With that option, students will learn online for the first quarter while keeping a spot for in-school learning reserved for the second quarter.
As the province announced at the end of July, students will be grouped in cohorts of 60 students for elementary and middle schools and 120 students at the secondary level. They will not be required to wear masks or physically distance within their cohorts, but they are encouraged to take both precautions outside of that bubble.
In the Sea to Sky, changes also include: 20 to 30 students per class, depending on the grade; staggered breaks, lunch times and class transitions; designated areas for different cohorts outdoors; floor markings and posters to direct traffic; restrictions around local field trips; and regular hand sanitizing.
Extracurricular activities like sports, arts or clubs are allowed, but they will require physical distancing between students from different cohorts. Inter-school events will not take place.
In addition, secondary students will take just two classes over each of four quarters with the opportunity to learn online for the first quarter and transition back to school for the second quarter in mid-November. After that, they either have to choose to return or remain online.
“[We’ll have] double staff for a couple months,” said district superintendent Lisa McCullough. “It’s hard to find enough teachers to fill all the roles sometimes—like in French immersion—then we’re going to be carrying a double suite of staff to do our online learning as well.”
Online learning will not be the same as it was in the spring when classroom teachers were leading it. Rather, there will be dedicated Sea to Sky online teachers.
While online learning wasn’t initially available for students in Kindergarten to Grade 9, that’s changed. “Staff took recommendations from the board at the last meeting to open it up for K to 9, knowing that families were looking for options right now,” McCullough said.
The district recently hosted an online survey to find out more about how parents want their children to return to school. Of the 5,000 students, 4,000 surveys were returned. At all levels, 92 per cent indicated they would be returning to school.
At the elementary level, 6.5 per cent said they wanted to move to online learning while less than one per cent of respondents wanted to homeschool their own children. A small number indicated they were moving away.
However, 16.5 per cent of elementary families also said that while they would like to return to in-school learning, they would prefer a transition period. An additional 22 per cent indicated they “might” prefer the transition. The same question was not asked at the middle or secondary level where eight per cent said they planned to move to online learning. Less than one per cent plan to homeschool.
“We know the importance of education for our children, but we also know the importance of socializing and the mental health support of being connected—feeling like you’re capable and contributing,” McCullough said of the high number of respondents planning to head back to school. “Those are incredibly important elements of human development and our wellness. Families know this and know their children need to be connected.”
While the survey indicated nearly all students will return to in-school learning, Gardner added that, “the way the survey was posed didn’t really leave a ton of room for people to express their concerns.”
“I’m not saying they’re wrong—I can tell the staff really believe they have a good plan in place and they’re working really hard to communicate that plan—but they’re moving down the path they have to move down because it’s been mandated [by the province],” she said. “I can tell you as a parent, what I’m not comfortable with right now is that it’s all based on percentages of containment. There’s a belief people are willing to take the risk and ride it out if their kid gets it. I don’t know if parents are as comfortable with that strategy as the ministries of health or education believe.”
The BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) has started a campaign advocating for the provincial government to mandate several safety changes to the classroom ahead of the return to school, including: smaller class sizes and reduced school density; stronger mask regulations when distancing isn’t possible; options for remote learning; and funding for cleaning and ventilation.
April Lowe, president of the Sea to Sky Teachers’ Association, did not return calls by press time, but in a press release, BCTF president Teri Mooring highlighted that physical-distancing requirements in particular are likely not being met.
“We all want to get back to a place where every student is in school learning, socializing, and celebrating those ‘a-ha’ moments,” Mooring said in the release. “It’s why we teach. The pandemic, however, has changed everything and it’s not going away. We need to do things differently and that starts with making sure staff and students can actually achieve physical distancing in our schools and classrooms. Under the government’s current plan, that physical distancing just isn’t possible.”
But one major concern parents have raised is outside the classroom: new rules around who can ride the school bus. With a decrease in the number of children allowed on buses to accommodate distancing, the district is turning to “walk limits” established by the Board of Education pre-pandemic. If a student in Kindergarten to Grade 3 lives 3.2 kilometres from the school, they are not eligible to ride the bus. That distance increases to 4.2 km for students from Grades 4 to 12.
“There are exceptions to that,” McCullough said. “Children with special needs will have additional services provided. There will be a very small number of situations where we feel the risk is too high for the student to walk. In Whistler, based on the highway or not having a crosswalk in that range, there will be a very small number of situations where we feel the risk is too high for the student to walk.”
One idea the district has proposed is asking the various PACs to create a “walking school bus.”
“The idea … is there would be certain locations students would gather and wait for the walking school bus to come by. There would be an adult in the group and they would hand off to an adult at the next location and so on. It’s a bit like a relay.”
School principals at each school are the ones who decide on the exceptions, she added.
In the meantime, Gardner’s advice for parents is to contact schools with concerns about any aspect of the back-to-school process.
“It’s going to be really fluid and people have to get as much information as they can get and make the best decision for their family,” she said. “My experience with the schools here in SD48 has always been that the administrators will bend over backwards to try and make it work for the kids and the families. The biggest message is reach out.”
For details on the back-to-school safety plans, visit sd48seatosky.org.
Editor's note: this story initially stated Meredith Gardner was opting to have her son learn online for the first quarter. That was incorrect. Pique apologizes for the error.
