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Students head home for May due to COVID

Hopeful for vaccinations

St. Albert parents, teachers and students weren’t surprised this week when the province ordered almost all students to learn from home this month due to a surge in COVID-19. 

Thousands of K-to-12 students in the St. Albert and Sturgeon County region packed their books and headed home for three weeks on May 6 to comply with new provincial health orders related to the region’s spike in COVID-19 cases. 

The province ordered all K-to-12 students in regions with more than 50 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people and 30 or more active cases to learn from home from May 7 to May 25. The order applied to all schools in the St. Albert and Sturgeon County region, as those areas were well above those thresholds.

The move followed total case counts in the province reaching all-time highs in the pandemic, with Alberta having the highest number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people of any region in Canada or the U.S. on May 1. 

It superseded a previous order that saw all St. Albert 7-to-12 students switch to remote learning as of May 3.  

Schools would still be open for day-cares and special needs students that required in-person assistance, said Greater St. Albert Catholic assistant superintendent Cathy Giesbrecht. She encouraged parents to call their local schools if their kids needed help in the next few weeks. 

Relief, but no surprise

Bellerose Grade 12 student and High School Culinary Challenge medal-winner Charlotte Campbell said she was definitely not surprised by the province’s decision to send students online. Roughly 170 students at her school were currently in isolation due to COVID-19.  

“It was getting a little nerve-wracking wracking to be in there. You didn’t know what was going to be happening the next day,” she said.  

Campbell said this was the third time this pandemic that her school had been forced to move to remote learning. The switch to a two-course-per-day quarterly model has helped her keep up with her studies, but there had definitely been a sense of panic and tension in the classroom in recent months. Socialization has also proved difficult, as all her friends were in COVID-19 isolation. 

“The hardest part about it is just planning ahead,” she said, as you never know if you will actually be able to attend in-person from day-to-day. 

Parent Steph Wiebe said her elementary-age daughter was happy to switch back to remote lessons, having spent most of the fall and winter quarters online.  

“She’s a very outgoing kid, but she’s become more of a homebody,” she said, and gotten used to being around her mom and sister.

While Wiebe said she could manage online learning as she worked from home, she knew of other single parents who were now struggling to adapt to this latest change. She criticized the province for waiting this long to introduce new restrictions, and questioned the value of sending kids back to in-person classes with less than a month left in the school year. 

“By the time they go back, there will be three weeks left. What’s the point?”  

Sister Alphonse teacher Carryl Bennett said St. Albert schools have been struggling with COVID-19 for weeks, with Neil M. Ross switching to at-home learning on April 26 due to a large outbreak. Teaching in recent months has been “highly stressful,” with teachers constantly worried about bringing the disease home to their families or having lesson plans upended by new restrictions. 

Campbell said she was excited to hear that COVID-19 vaccines would be available to Albertans 13 and up starting May 10, adding that she and her friends were keen to sign up for shots. 

There was a lot more hope in the school halls now that vaccinations have opened up to all teachers as of May 4, Bennett said.  

“I just got my first shot last Thursday (April 29) and I can’t tell you, I was giddy before I went in. I was super, super happy that I was doing my part and knowing there would be an end to this (pandemic) eventually.” 


Kevin Ma

About the Author: Kevin Ma

Kevin Ma joined the St. Albert Gazette in 2006. He writes about Sturgeon County, education, the environment, agriculture, science and aboriginal affairs. He also contributes features, photographs and video.
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