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St. Albert Public ready for school restart, board chair says

St. Albert Public board chair Glenys Edwards offered her reassurances to parents that there are many plans that will come into effect, and they will have the option to have their children continue their education out of the classroom as well.
Glenys Edwards
St. Albert Public board chair Glenys Edwards

St. Albert Public Schools is ready for its approximately 9,000 students to return to in-school classes on Aug. 31 under the “near-normal” Scenario 1 as per the provincial government’s announcement earlier this week.

Board chair Glenys Edwards said they were fully expecting this announcement and explained there would be many measures small and large put in place to ensure the safety and wellbeing of students and staff.

That said, parents and students should also know the schools are ready for further changes, should Scenarios 2 or 3 become realities.

“We're working from the premise that all of our staff and students will come to school healthy. We have protocols in place,” Edwards began.

Those protocols are broadly sweeping, starting with hand sanitizer and continuing throughout the arrangement of the entire calendar year.

If students arrive at school with symptoms of COVID-19, they will be isolated immediately and their parents will be required to pick them up immediately, she said.

“We know we've got a very supportive community of parents and we know that they'll work with us in creating a safe environment in our schools.”

There will be directional signage for safer traffic flow. Desks and workspaces have been moved as far apart as possible. Soft furnishings and other objects that can't be wiped down and sanitized will be removed. The list continues.

“We will be limiting activities that are normally part of our school days. We will be limiting ... any activities that have risk of exposure, such as field trips, athletic activities, even some classroom activities. Our classroom activities will be limited to those that have the least risk of transmission or exposure.”

Another strategy St. Albert Public will be implementing involves the establishment of cohort groups: primarily in the elementary and junior highs, students will be grouped into cohorts. Students will be expected to do almost all of their activities together during their school days within their cohort.

Those are Alberta Health Services guidelines, Edwards noted, adding this is the best possible plan of action considering the nature of the pandemic and the infrastructure they have to work with.

“We need our families to be aware that it's going to be difficult. We have very full schools. While we are implementing cohorting guidelines, we are going to have to work within very crowded buildings, of course. We'll be using the other limiting restrictions, like all kinds of sanitizing and handwashing and so on, and masks where possible, because we understand that cohorting and social distancing is going to be difficult in our crowded buildings.”

Both public high schools – Paul Kane and Bellerose – are full, she said.

One of the biggest changes will be for students at those high schools. Instead of two semesters, there will be four to make the students’ education more manageable and to make things more flexible in case of changes.

Instead of taking four classes a day, high school students will take two, each being twice as long as they were previously. This is another attempt to limit the number of interactions being staff and students throughout each day.

This also means each semester will be completed in half the time as before.

“If we need to switch scenarios, we can finish a semester in a short period of time and then go to a different scenario for the next semester. It just means that at high school, we will be more flexible to transition should we need to between the scenarios.”

'School-but-not-at-school' possibility

Edwards highlighted that the public schools are making plans to accommodate online learning for students who do not wish to attend classes in person in the fall.

“Parents will have a choice. Once they understand what to expect in our schools and understand what we've set up for safety measures, parents then make a choice and they can choose to not have their children attend classes in person.”

A questionnaire will be sent out to all families in the middle of August, the results of which will help administrators to better plan for the students who will be returning to the schools as well as the students who will be supported with online learning.

Edwards strongly urged parents to visit The Relaunch 2020 page on the school district’s website. There is a question and answer section on that page that will have a comprehensive amount of information for all. The website also offers the results of the recent relaunch survey the school district conducted.

Funding for the necessities

Edwards ended with the reassurance that the schools are spending the necessary money to make sure they are as safe as possible.

Those expenses are not going to go unnoticed.

“We are tracking our costs associated directly with the pandemic and we expect these costs to be significant, especially in the areas of personal equipment, PPE and sanitation and extra staffing,” she continued, noting everything is coming from an increasingly smaller purse.

She offered her strong concerns and disappointment that the provincial government is not providing significant additional funding to help out with all of these extra expenses.

Edwards pointed out how the budget for the upcoming school year is lower than it was two years ago, while enrollment is significantly higher for the current period. For example, she said, elementary enrollments have increased by 20 per cent over the last 10 years, and they continue to rise.

“Our challenge is that our funding is not matching our growth. When our funding doesn't match our growth, we are getting less money per pupil. Funds to fight COVID are going to have to partially come out of classroom dollars. We are using our reserves. We're using some facilities money. We're using some administrative money to fight COVID. But that isn't enough. We are taking funds out of our regular instructional money,” she said.

“We understand that provincial government is in a year of fiscal restraint. We do understand their reality, and we accept it, but within their fiscal reality, we need public education to be a top priority.”


Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

About the Author: Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Ecology and Environment Reporter at the Fitzhugh Newspaper since July 2022 under Local Journalism Initiative funding provided by News Media Canada.
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