‘It’s great to reach so many students,’ teacher says of virtual summer school (3 photos)

Friday will mark the last day of school for SK to Grade 8 pupils enrolled in the virtual Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board (H-SCDSB) Summer Learning Program, which began July 5.

It’s the second consecutive year the program has been offered remotely to a significant number of students across the Sault and Algoma district, both teachers and students having to quickly adapt to virtual learning last summer due to COVID-19 restrictions. 

“(This year) we are reaching some different communities. This is the first year that we’ve had Hornepayne involved, which is great, and a returning staff member in Chapleau, which is wonderful to see. It’s just great to incorporate another northern community,” said Nadia Zanatta, H-SCDSB Summer Learning Program site administrator, speaking to SooToday.

This summer, the program includes 115 students and 23 staff members, including teachers, a skill builder, tutor and an Indigenous support worker.

Approximately 75 of those pupils are from the Sault, Zanatta said.

In addition, there are two pupils from Hornepayne, one from Chapleau, one from Wawa, six from Espanola, five from Blind River and approximately 20 from Elliot Lake.

“The full staff is noticing that the transition (to virtual learning for the summer) is much more seamless this year compared to last year with simple things like just logging in, being familiar with Google Classroom. The kids had that integrated throughout the year, in in person and in remote learning, so they were more familiar with those digital citizenship acts and practices. That was something that didn’t really have to be addressed this year,” Zanatta said.

“Starting on day one, parents were also aware of what Google Classroom is, all the kids knew their passwords.”

That took up a bit of time last year, considering remote learning was so new for so many, and the summer learning program condensed into a mere 15 days, Zanatta said.

“We were able to get going much faster this year, and the Ministry of Education also added an additional hour. This year we had two hours of synchronous (group) learning plus one hour of asynchronous (non-group) instruction daily, so to get an extra 15 hours (throughout the program’s duration) is a lot. It’s great. It gives you more time to do one on one instruction.”

Zanatta said parents have extended words of appreciation and gratefulness for what the board is offering their children through the remotely-delivered program.

This year’s program included some new and improved events for students, including synchronous coding, an ‘ask a scientist’ session and weekly live animal encounters with Sudbury’s Science North and presentations from the Sault’s Entomica.

Huron-Superior board educator Akeshia Trudeau also arranged to have Arizona-based Miss Native American USA 2019-2020 Lexie James read stories, share her experiences and display her crown to the board’s remote classes.

“This is the first time Lexie named this as her first international event,” Zanatta said.

Other activities included pizza and donut decorating days thanks to restaurants providing pizza kits and donut decorating kits to students and their families in order to enjoy online get-togethers.

“It’s great that we can reach all students despite their geographic location in the board when we deliver virtually. It’s such a rich opportunity to learn when you have a class of students and staff from north, east and city schools (through remote teaching and learning technology, learning of each other’s communities within the vast Huron-Superior region),” Zanatta said.

“You would never have that option (through conventional classroom learning).”