ATHABASCA — On the cusp of the second full school year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, lessons have been learned by administrators and schools have adapted.
During a Zoom meeting Aug. 24, Aspen View Public Schools (AVPS) superintendent Neil O’Shea spoke with close to 40 participants about what online school looked like last year and what it will likely look like this year.
“The purpose of tonight's meeting is to hear from people ... about what some of their needs are moving into the next school year,” he said. “I will share some preliminary thoughts with you but until we kind of hear back from people and find out what some of the needs are, I'm not sure that I can present a plan to you tonight.”
He compared the potential plan to the chicken and the egg conundrum; parents want a plan so they can make a choice, but AVPS can’t create a plan until parents make a choice.
“We kind of need to find out what people are thinking, prior to us being able to set up a program; you're saying, ‘Well I can't make any commitments until we actually know what you're thinking’ so, hopefully we'll work through this together and have a pretty good discussion,” said O’Shea.
He added he has no interest in knowing where people stand on vaccinations, masking or even if COVID-19 is real and doesn’t need a reason why people choose online over in-person schooling.
“Sometimes I don't even really like to know people's stances on things, because it doesn't really affect what I do,” said O’Shea. “My job is to lead our division and provide a good education.”
He informed attendees the AVPS senior administration team met Aug. 16 and 17 to go through Alberta Education documents to ensure they had everything in the back-to-school plans, then the trustees met Aug. 18 for review and provide further input before it was presented to school administrators Aug. 19 so they could customize them for each school.
“So, something that's specific to Boyle; maybe it's recess times, maybe it's drop-off and entry,” he said. “It might not affect other parts of our division.”
O’Shea added he sympathizes with families making the decision between online and brick and mortar based on an unknown future, but ensured AVPS will be supportive, however there would need to be a commitment to staying with online for a set amount of time.
“We don't have the number of students registered; we will not have 188 students registered today,” he said. “Two weeks from now, I could be singing a very different tune if we see numbers change in this province … but based on the feedback we've got from people at this point in time, we would not be able to have a single grade classroom, from Kindergarten to Grade 9, like we did last year.”
The question of whether there could be an online component for a few weeks to see how numbers go once school starts also came up.
“It'd be very difficult for us to put in an online program to meet the needs of certain people for six weeks or eight weeks or until after Thanksgiving or until after November break,” said O’Shea. “So, that's one of our challenges. The other challenge we have of course is around staffing.”
O’Shea also stressed full online schooling was never considered a permanent option.
“It's not that we don't support that. It's just the division, our size, we don't necessarily have the infrastructure to support that, and we don't really have the capacity,” he said. “So, we need to be clear that last year when we moved to an online option – and if we choose something this year – is not because we're going to go down a road of online programming forever and ever.”
He added the Centre for Alternative and Virtual Education (CAVE) – an outreach program for students who, for a variety of reasons, can’t attend all or any classes in person – is always available for Grades 7 to 12 and if there is a shift to online it will not include a Kindergarten class.
“Last year we chose to offer Kindergarten programming online, other divisions did not,” said O’Shea. “The reason they did not is because Kindergarten is not a mandatory program; Kindergarten is still optional in the province of Alberta; you do not have to send your children to Kindergarten. So, at this point in time, we are not looking at an alternate Kindergarten program.”
One of the parents in attendance asked if Chromebooks would be sent home for students who miss class for an extended period due to illness and O’Shea said, yes, the division has some they can lend, but not enough for every student, but added the division has to remain ready to adjust as needed.
“One of the things that our board is good at is making sure that we can pivot based on the situation; we have got to learn to be flexible; we had to be flexible all last year,” he said. “We just saw today (Aug. 24) on the news in B.C. that province-wide they have reintroduced masking based on their numbers of cases and we take our lead from Alberta Health Services and from Alberta Education so, what we're seeing today might not be where we land 10 days from now because we know that the circumstance is fluid, and things are changing.”
He did reassure the families in attendance schools will continue with high-touch cleaning throughout the day and additional hand sanitizer stations have been kept in place. O’Shea added many things will take a few weeks to return to pre-pandemic levels, including assemblies and allowing parents free access to schools.
“We don't want to just kick the doors open wide next Monday (Aug. 30) and say it's back to normal,” he said. “We do have some restrictions being lifted, but a lot of the things that we're doing are being reintegrated slowly into the school year.”
Families interested in virtual schooling can contact Donna Wesley at the CAVE at 780-675-7080 Ext. 05 or [email protected].
