By Pepper Parr
August 17th, 2020
BURLINGTON, ON
Director of Education for the Halton District School Board (HDSB), Stuart Miller
The Director of Education for the Halton District School Board (HDSB), Stuart Miller, is hunkered down with his staff at the Education Centre on Guelph Line in Burlington, taking part in a meeting that has them all in the same large room.
This is a group that will be very strict in the way people in the room social distance and wear masks.
They are there to figure out how they can handle the opening of the schools on September 8th.
It is not going to be an easy task.
The province has set out requirements that many feel are just plain wrong – but school boards have to do what the Ministry tells them to do.
The government wants students back in classroom and has directed that elementary schools operate just the way they did before the schools were closed in March.
Secondary students will spend some time in a classroom and some time working from their homes being taught synchronically by their teacher who will be in the school.
Last week the Board of Education sent a note to every parent asking what they planned to do with their children: were they going to have them attend classes or were they going to keep them at home?
As of last Thursday just over 50% of the parents had responded. The responses were supposed to have been returned by last Friday – that deadline has been extended.
When parents have questions they show up in droves with their hands in the air. This parents meeting took place at Aldershot High school when the iStem program was announced.
Directors of Education across the province are close to being totally fed up by the way the Ministry of Education is handling the delivery of education to students.
Of the 50% that did respond 81% of the parents of elementary students said they would return; 86% of the secondary parents said their children would return.
There are roughly 45,000 elementary school students being taught by the HDSB and roughly 19,000 secondary students.
The 50% of the parents that answered the survey as soon as they got it were pretty sure as to what they wanted to do – it is reasonable to assume that the other 50% were not certain.
If you do the math – you get a sense as to the size of the problem the HDSB administration is up against.
To get some sense as to what teachers are going to have to deal with. There are elementary schools in the system that have enrollments of 1200 students – Oakville and Milton have elementary schools that big.
Superintendent Terri Blackwell has led the development of the program for secondary school students during the pandemic.
Scott Podrebarac has led the program for elementary school students. Both Podrebarac and Blackwell are supported by a team of senior people
How does one keep the required control over 1,200 students – ensuring that they are wearing masks; ensuring that they stay within their cohort, ensuring that they don’t mix with students from other cohorts?
The HDSB has had a schedule of the condition of the HVAC systems in every school in the Region.
More than four months ago HDSB asked for permission to use some of the $40 million in the Board’s Reserve Fund account to upgrade the HVAC systems. They didn’t get a response; they were told that they could allocate $6 million from the reserve fund account to purchase the PPE supplies that would be needed.
Some school Boards, Toronto in particular, are pushing the province to permit staggered classroom openings. Nothing positive yet from the province.
The Province also said that 500 nurses were going to be hired and made available to the school districts. Nothing yet on who will be overseeing those nurses and how they will interact with the individual schools.
Will those nurses be assigned to specific schools or will they be assigned to the Public Health unit they are within?
What will a school do if they find they have an infected student? Close the class and send everyone home for 14 days or shutdown the whole school?
How will busing students to school be handled? Will there be enough drivers?
Miller expects today’s meeting to last all day and points out that most of his staff have worked every weekend since the lockdown took place in March. “This is a tremendous administrative task” adding that “there are more questions than answers – we are going to have to make things up on a daily basis. It is going to be a challenge.”
The trustees will meet for a virtual meeting on Wednesday.
