WESTLOCK — As schools prepare to receive their students back to in-person teaching, Westlock principals say plans are in place to ensure their returning students and teachers stay safe.
Both R.F. Staples School and St. Mary School expect that most of their students are coming back to the hallways. At SMS, principal Vance Nakonechny says that after an August survey of parents, about 15 per cent won’t come back. At RF, “I would be surprised if it’s 10 per cent of our population” that chooses to stay home, said principal Wayne Rufiange.
“I talked to a parent yesterday, child has asthma, grandmother lives at home with them so they don’t want to compromise her. A lot of it is, you know, they’re anxious,” said Nakonechny.
“I think our plan is solid in terms of protecting kids as best we can. The mask protocol definitely helps. I’m not a health expert, I don’t claim to be one, but everything that I’ve read so far indicates that definitely help prevent or limit the spread.”
Rufiange agrees about the masks, especially for a school with 650 students.
For the first week, both divisions have staggered re-entry, either by last name or grade.
“It helps us immensely, actually. And I think it’ll help the kids as well,” said Rufiange.
“It’ll just make it easier, less students in the buildings, and we can really focus on the students on those days, about what their role is and what they have to do, what their school day will look like, and get their feedback too because they’ve got good ideas that we may have overlooked.”
After that, the school environment is going to continue to be different. Junior high students, instead of moving from class to class, will remain in their homerooms and teachers will be the mobile ones.
“We can’t keep high school kids in a room just because they’re in different academic streams,” explained Rufiange. So RF is split in half, with junior high on the south side, and high school on the north side to keep cohorts separate.
Athletics also remain suspended, at least for the first semester—although at RF Staples, they’re continuing to have conversations about what’s possible.
“I know as a former high school athlete, player, I would be very distraught with that news,” said Nakonechny.
“I’m hoping that at this point, we’re just suspended. If things go well, I’m hoping that we can get some sort of season in, even if it’s a compressed one,” except that’s up to the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association.
Beside COVID-19, divisions also have to worry about changes to their budgets. While at St. Mary, Nakonechny says their funding is in place, budget cuts did force layoffs at RF. Rufiange announced June 29 that 11 school employees will be leaving—two retirements and nine layoffs, including associate principal Jason Wiks.
This also impact class sizes.
“If our numbers hold from what we registered, … there’s some Math, Social Studies and English classes, there’s three or four of them that are around the 40 range,” said Rufiange.
Without even taking into account the impacts on children’s educational support, in the short term it also means that most of the school will be wearing masks most of the time, including during class time.
“I would say, even in what I’d call a typical or regular class, we can’t do that physical distancing, so I would say 95 per cent or better of our classes, they’re going to be masked,” said Rufiange.
“Certainly, what we are worried about is mask-shaming, or if someone does, I hope it doesn’t happen, but let’s say someone does contract COVID-19. Are we going to point fingers and blame and shame them or are we going say ‘We got this, that’s OK, we’re going to do our best to support them and make the most of the situation.’ I think that’ll be a measure of our community. We’re ready for that and I think we can make a good job of a bad thing together.”
