Many public school students still learning remotely; high schools back to semesters in February

Algoma District School Board (ADSB) trustees received what board chair Jennifer Sarlo described as “a very exhaustive update on two days of learning in 2022” at their first board meeting of the year held virtually Tuesday.

The meeting was held after the majority of ADSB students returned to classrooms Monday, much later than the originally scheduled Jan. 3, 2022 post-Christmas holiday return to class date, the delay due to concerns over the COVID-19 Omicron variant.

Until Monday, students were learning remotely as the board, like others across Ontario, ensured enough N95 masks and HEPA filters were in place as COVID precautions before students returned to classrooms.

Not all students have returned to class however, as some parents have opted to have their children and teens continue learning remotely from Jan. 17 to Feb. 3.

Marcy Bell, ADSB superintendent, reported that 660 elementary students across the ADSB system are still learning remotely.

At the secondary level, 346 students across the ADSB system are still learning remotely.

Bell noted that those numbers are much higher than the total number of students who chose to learn remotely after classes started in the current school year in Sept. 2021 (before Omicron) but still much lower than the number of students opting to learn remotely after the first return to classes in Sept. 2020, six months after the COVID-19 pandemic first struck.

“There’s no indication of why they have opted (to keep learning remotely as of Monday),” Bell said, addressing the board and trustees.

“They could be immune compromised, it could be their choice as a family, they may have COVID, they may not, there may be home circumstances, we don’t have that information. That was not something we requested.” 

School boards are required by the Ontario government to offer remote learning options to students.

“Parents have the ability to opt for one or the other,” Bell said. 

Superintendent Brent Vallee said the board was able to deliver in class instruction for approximately 100 special education students with complex needs (developmental disabilities, cognitive delays, communication issues including limited verbal capacity or non-verbal) in 15 different schools across the system between Jan. 5 and Jan. 14 before Monday’s official return to classes.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Joe Maurice told trustees that ADSB high school students, after the board consulted with Algoma Public Health (APH), will be moving back to a regular four-course-per-day semester system in February.

That’s a switch from a quadmester system, then a modified semester system (two courses a day for two weeks at a time, then another two courses a day for another two weeks at a time) that the ADSB put in place.

“That is one of the recommendations (from the Ministry of Education), is to try to get back to a semester as soon as we can. We do think semesters, in the end, are the best mode for students in terms of learning and feedback we’ve gotten,” Maurice said.

Cafeterias in high schools are closed, but Lucia Reece, ADSB director of education, told trustees “many of them are preparing snacks that are being distributed in different ways to different classrooms right now. We will look at some creative options for the second semester as well.”

As far as vaccination of children and teens is concerned, chair Sarlo said APH reports that 53 per cent of children from five to 11 years old in the Sault and Algoma have received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 79 per cent of those from 12 to 17 years old have received two doses.

“We’ve had good uptake. I think that’s good information,” Sarlo said.