Boards in back-to-school planning mode

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The area’s two largest school boards are deep in planning mode after the province announced all elementary and secondary schools in the area could open at full capacity in the fall.

The local boards are tweaking several aspects of their back-to-school plans after the government on Thursday said all elementary schools across the province, and high schools in areas with a “lower risk,” will be allowed to reopen with a normal daily schedule, five days a week.

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The Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario, which is home to 13,000 students, is one of the boards considered low risk and allowed to reopen at full capacity. In a press release, the board said because of this, all of its elementary and secondary students will return to school with enhanced health and safety protocols on Sept. 4.

While elementary students will attend school five days a week in a relatively normal, full school day, they will need to take a different approach at the secondary level.

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High schools will implement a “quadmestering” model, whereby students will attend school five days a week but only take two courses at a time for nine-week periods – also referred to as “quad-mesters.”

Details of how precisely this will work are forthcoming, board officials said.

“We are confident that through this very extensive and well thought out re-entry plan, the board has included consideration for all facets of the return to school in September,” board chairman Todd Lalonde said in a statement.

“There has certainly been significant thought put into every aspect of the school day, and we look forward to sharing the plan in detail with our parent community.”

The full re-entry plan, created before the provincial announcement this week, includes measures for enhanced safety protocols for September, the board said.

Included in the plan are “enhanced supports for students with special needs, as well as additional mental health supports for students with identified anxieties, and specialized training for staff.”

The full plan will be released to the public once it is approved by the Ministry of Education.

On the other hand, the Upper Canada District School Board hasn’t yet decided how it will proceed at the secondary level and whether or not it will implement the quadmester system.

The board, which is home to 26,000 students, last week said a full-time return to school is the “only viable option” for reopening.

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During the back-to-school discussions last week, board administrators said they were not considering the quadmester system, despite the fact that was the direction being taken at the majority of boards throughout the province.

On Thursday, however, after the provincial announcement, the board said it would be going back to the drawing board to determine how exactly to proceed in light of the news.

In a statement, board administrators said they hope to offer full-time in-class instruction to high school students, but in order to do that, they need to come up with a plan “that limits interaction between multiple groups of students while at school.”

They’re currently in the midst of planning those details and will release them when they have “further clarity and assurance on this.”

The board said it is also planning how exactly it will proceed with its face covering protocols after the government said students in Grades 4 to 12 will be required to wear face masks while at school.

In addition, they’re working to install “additional hand hygiene stations and enhancing the cleaning of school sites,” they said.

“Our next steps are to refine and adjust daily school routines, including drop-off and pick-up for students, nutrition breaks, directional routes within schools, illness protocols, and lunch routines, to name a few.”

“While today’s announcement addressed some of the questions we had about the 2020-2021 school year, there are still a number of details that need to be addressed,” board chairman John McAllister and director Stephen Sliwa said in a joint statement this week.

Cementing plans in all of these areas will take time, they said, but information “will be shared over the next few weeks.”

sbedford@postmedia.com