Saturday April 18, 2020 ~ BC
by Mary Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
Access to the Internet for continued education during the COVID-19 pandemic is being aided in BC with the lending of over 23,000 computers and devices to students across the province, it was stated in a news release today from the Ministry of Education.
This is to enable continued delivery of the BC curriculum while in-class learning is suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Now, more than ever, we must come together to help children and families who are struggling in our communities,” said Rob Fleming, Minister of Education. “That’s why we’re working closely with all 60 school districts to quickly provide parents and children with the supports they need to connect with each other, teachers and learning opportunities.”
Today April 18 Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry said that BC public health is “planning for when we get to mid-May when we are able to take those actions that increase our social connections and industrial and business connections and opening up of health care system”.
Dr Henry says the “new normal will be modification of some of things we need to do today” while itemizing cleaning our hands, covering coughs, and staying home if unwell).
“Safe distances between us are going to continue. How we open schools and businesses with safe distances between us” is something that’s being worked on, said Dr Henry today April 18. But mass gatherings such as graduations, festivals and parades are not going to happen this summer, she added.
So as education continues in the new altered format for now, in the Sooke School District 62 (SD62) on the west shore of south Vancouver Island, SD62 Superintendent Scott Stinson says he is “amazed at quality of connection that is happening for students”.
Some of the teachers are learning how to use some of these platforms for the first time, he says, adding that they are “seizing the opportunity to do something well that isn’t typically in our wheel house”, Stinson told West Shore Voice News this week.
SD62 Board Chair Ravi Parmar says that when the closure of schools happened, the school district responded well. “With the resources that we’ve had, we’ve been able to get up and running very quickly,” he told West Shore Voice News this week.
SD62 delivers public education to families in Langford, Colwood, Highlands, Metchosin, parts of View Royal, and Sooke and beyond to Port Renfrew. Their administration office is located in Langford. Physical schools are in Langford, Colwood and Sooke.
Only three SD62 school buildings are open during COVID-19, to support the children of essential workers: Saseenos Elementary in Sooke, Lakewood Elementary in Langford, and Colwood Elementary in Colwood.
Superintendent Stinson explains that teaching platforms are more robust that what people are generally using online. Platforms include MS Teams (video conferencing, posting documents), Google Apps for Education, some in-house grade reporting functions, and My Blueprint at the secondary level. A few things were in place already within SD62, he says. The SD62 IT department was well situated to provide support for use of those platforms.
Stinson notes how fortuitous it was that the SD62 board approved a significant IT budget increase for the 2019-2020 academic year (up to $1.1 million from a few hundred thousand the year before), enabling a rollout of a laptop computer to teachers among other things that have proved invaluable during this present crisis.
Stinson says that to help students who do not have adequate internet access at home, SD62 has worked with internet service providers to ensure families have low-cost internet or unlimited cellphone data plans.
In various school districts, local internet hotspots have also been created to ensure free Wi-Fi is available to multiple families in a neighbourhood.
At the direction of the Ministry of Education, immediately after spring break, school staff began contacting families to find out their unique needs. School districts then began creating solutions that would work best for their local communities.
School districts heard there are families who have no computer for their children to use, with some finding up to 30% of families surveyed had no access to technology at all.
There were also cases where there was only one computer in the home being used by a parent for full-time work. Districts also heard from families who have limited Wi-Fi or no access to internet or cellphone service.
In any given household there may be multiple Internet-enabled tools in use. “Where there are more than one or two students in a family, that requires different platforms for each teacher and more work for parents to learn,” said Stinson. “We’re trying to do a few things really well,” he explains, and adds that it’s a goal to try and not overload the parents with children learning at home.
One of the amazing adaptations in SD62 learning delivery has been in at the Kindergarten level. “It’s really quite amazing,” says Stinson, who says that classroom teachers have been using remote technology to lead students in singing songs and reading books. “It’s more of a family time than say for secondary school students who are working independently,” he said this week.
The load for teachers includes dealing with the curriculum needs at different grade levels. Kindergarten teachers who have a class size of up to 20 students are reaching out and to “make connection and build social relationships”, explained Stinson.
Primary grade classes have up to 22 students, intermediate (Grades 4 and 5) have up to 28 students, and students at middle and secondary levels are normally in classes of up to 30 students.
Teachers are reaching out to these groups that — at this point in the school year — have the advantage of knowing one another. When schools get back to some sort of ‘new normal’ in the fall of 2020, there will be the added challenge of developing cohesive social groupings at new grade level groupings.
Today Dr Henry said that some physical distance restrictions will be considered by mid-May (in business and community, not necessarily in schools right now).
Returning to school might see only some students in the classroom while others are working at home, as a way to continue with social distancing until there is a vaccine (which is not expected until fall of 2021). This makes pale by comparison the distress that growing school districts were feeling about having some students in portables while the rest were in the main school building.
SD62 is strong on Academies (for a variety of sports, as well as dance, theatre and equestrian). “They are doing well, continuing to do a lot of stuff online, ” says Stinson. “There’s no ice or field time, but students are connecting with trainers and doing physical training.” Some course work specific to Academies is being done through distance learning, he said.
Before the pandemic hit, a new Eco-Academy was to start up at Edward Milne Community School in Sooke for fall 2020. Go-ahead on that is not yet confirmed.
“Boards of education across British Columbia understand the diverse learning needs of the students they serve,” said Stephanie Higginson, president, BC School Trustees Association.
“Boards of education know that learning solutions need to be tailored to local community needs. These technology loans are one small way boards are working to ensure that the needs of some of our most vulnerable students are met during these uncertain times.”
According to the Ministry release today April 18: “To meet the needs of families, school district staff have worked quickly to identify and collect equipment already available in schools, while also purchasing extra computers, laptops, tablets and other devices. Some school districts have redeployed their computer technicians to pre-install learning software or to provide tech support for families who struggle to use technology.”
“Parents appreciate the incredible collaboration between K-12 education and the Ministry of Education to ensure educators can shift from in-class learning to remote learning for each child,” said Andrea Sinclair, president, British Columbia Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils (BCCPAC).
“BCCPAC believes equity and equal opportunity are essential in public education and maintaining the connection with children is key. Families, especially those who are low income or living in rural and remote regions, must have devices and connectivity so their children can continue learning during this unique time.”
To support families looking for additional resources to help their children learn remotely, the Ministry of Education has created the Keep Learning website, which is updated almost daily with new activities for kids of any age. The website receives hundreds of thousands of visitors and page views every week.
========= Quick Facts from the Ministry of Education:
- In addition to equipment support, there are approximately:
- 2,300 spaces created in schools to support children of essential-service workers in public schools and 1,280 spaces in independent schools; and
- 75,000 meals delivered to 16,000 families for vulnerable children every week.
- The Ministry of Education has secured and funded enterprise licences with added security features for the application Zoom for all K-12 public, independent and First Nations schools in the province. This allows consistent access for educators who choose to use it, giving them more ways to connect with students, parents and guardians.
========= Links:
- The Ministry of Education worked with the privacy commissioner to create a set of guidelines for educators when using any online tools: https://www.oipc.bc.ca/guidance-documents/2402
- Accurate, timely information about schools, programs and educational services, including regularly updated frequently asked questions in multiple languages, is available at: www.gov.bc.ca/SafeSchools
- For the latest medical updates, including case counts, prevention, risks and testing, visit: http://www.bccdc.ca/
- Or follow @CDCofBC on Twitter.
- For the provincial health officer’s orders, notices and guidance, visit: www.gov.bc.ca/phoguidance
- For non-health related information, including financial, child care and education supports, travel, transportation and essential service information, visit: www.gov.bc.ca/Covid-19
- Or call 1 888 COVID19 (1 888 268-4319) between 7:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. (Pacific time), seven days a week.
====== West Shore Voice News editor Mary Brooke has covered school board politics in the west shore since 2014.
Here is Mary Brooke’s editorial “BC public school system carries on through COVID-19, morphing into something new” on the impacts of COVID-19 on education in BC — the first such piece before any of the school districts or even the Minister of Education came out with a statement
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