In-person learning might be short-lived: school boards

While students prepare to re-enter physical classrooms on Monday, parents are being warned they may need to pivot their kids back to online classes again at a moment’s notice.

The Calgary Board of Education posted a notice on its website warning there could be staffing challenges ahead and, with the ongoing pandemic, some classes could be cancelled and switched back to online learning.

In an interview with CityNews, the Calgary Catholic School Division also says there may be challenges as kids gear up to go back to in-school learning.

Both school boards say they will monitor classroom absences and possibly revert some classes to online learning if they believe there is a COVID-19 outbreak.

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“A guideline that we may be going with here in Calgary Catholic is if 25 per cent of the students in a particular class are absent and we think it’s because they’re sick, not at a tournament or something else,” CCSD Chief Superintendent Dr. Bryan Szumlas explained.

“Then the principal would work closely with their area director and in a case like that, that class may switch to emergency online learning at home for a ten calendar day period.”

However, the warning may be causing some stress for parents.

Support Our Students Alberta, a student advocacy group, says the ping-ponging between online learning and in-person classes is taking structure away from kids, but it might happen again.

“It’s this juggling of safety in the classroom — not getting omicron, but also remote learning is not conducive either long-term, and it’s just a really hard place to be in,” SOS spokesperson Wing Li said.

“I think it is exhausting, but [parents] need to be told the truth because we need to prepare however we can for the pivot and dealing with the moment-to-moment changes.”

She also says that the message this warning sends to parents is that school boards aren’t sure if they can maintain in-person classrooms with Omicron.

“It’s an indicator that school boards are not confident that the conditions right now prepare the schools for sustainable in-person [learning].”

Both school boards also warn that the spread of COVID-19 could also affect school busses, and parents need to stay with their kids at bus stops to ensure they get picked up.

CityNews reached out to Education Minister Adriana LaGrange’s office for comment in which they responded:

“Alberta school authorities are prepared for in-person and at-home learning scenarios, as they have been over the past two years. We expect there may be some schools that need to temporarily shift to at-home learning based on operational needs but the plan is to have students in classrooms as much as possible.

“School authorities continue to have the flexibility to shift a class or a grade to short-term at-home learning if they need to. Approval from the Minister of Education is required for a short-term shift of one or more schools or a school authority. Criteria is based on staff absences, student absenteeism, operational measures already undertaken, local context, supporting data where possible, and ongoing input from school authorities.”