With school reopening weeks away, there is still plenty of homework to be done, teachers say

EDMONTON — The student parade back into the classroom will look much different this September, with school reopening just weeks away, yet Canada still immersed in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The plans for students vary from province to province, sometimes even between school districts within a province. Parents are looking at everything from learning cohorts, and dropping their kids off at school instead of sending them on the bus to options for remote learning. Toronto students will not have any school sports or lockers. Edmonton public schools will have mandatory masks in classrooms.

As soon as governments rolled out their reopening plans, critics spoke out. And many teachers are concerned.

Sandra Haltiner, a high school teacher with the Edmonton Catholic School Board, said there are teachers who are excited to see students, but also those — especially with health conditions — who are “very uneasy.”

“It’s beyond the work we do as a teacher, now,” Haltiner said. “I am running the risk, you know, as a teacher, who’s going to be with students every day, of contracting COVID or bringing COVID into my home and into my personal life.”

On Tuesday, Adriana LaGrange, Alberta’s education minister, announced that students from Grades 4 to 12 would have to wear masks in public spaces, but not in classrooms, unless they wished to do so or would be interacting closely with teachers or staff.

“Emerging evidence has made it clear that masks can play an important role in limiting the spread of COVID-19 in our schools,” LaGrange said.

· COVID-19 and school kids: 'There will be transmission' experts say. But how sick will they get?
· Back to school: About a dozen countries have returned kids to classrooms. What Canada can learn from them

Shortly after LaGrange made her announcement, the Edmonton Public School Board said it would be mandatory for students in public schools to wear masks while in the classroom — not just in public parts of the building — adding there’s no possibility of proper physical distancing within schools.

Across the country, there’s a rising tide of concern among educators and parents about the risks of cramming kids into classrooms and how that could impact the community. A recent poll from Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies says that 41 per cent of Canadians are “more worried” about COVID-19 with the return of schooling in the fall.

On social media, parents and teachers have rallied, with open letters demanding changes to make schools safer upon reopening. Teachers’ unions around the country have put out their own proposals for how school openings should look.

In British Columbia, the province hasn’t decreed that students wear masks, but it has created “student cohorts” of 60 kids for elementary and middle school students and 120 for secondary school, who will learn together. Teachers’ unions in the province said the plan needed more work to keep teachers and students safe.

Physical space is a major hang-up in several provinces, where teachers have long argued their classrooms are already overcrowded.

“With the arrival of COVID-19, what was a serious pedagogical problem has become an urgent public health issue,” said the Alberta Teachers’ Association in a statement.

Haltiner said this is true in her experience. Her classroom has tables of two; with a full class of students, there’s no way to fit everyone in without sharing tables.

“They don’t fit in a classroom now, they surely won’t fit with social distancing,” she said. “Asking a whole bunch of elementary students to stay still and face forward for six hours is not the reality of what classrooms look like.”

The Alberta union, which represents more than 50,000 teachers in the province, has made several of its own recommendations, including that HVAC systems be upgraded within school.

Manitoba has compensated for the risks of crowded classrooms with remote learning for high school students if they’re in locations where there isn’t enough classroom space to allow for physical distancing.

In Ontario, teacher union bosses gathered to condemn Premier Doug Ford’s government’s plan, which has reduced class sizes in some districts for secondary students, but keeps elementary class sizes the same, calling it a “half-baked scheme.”

With files from The Canadian Press and the Edmonton Journal

• Email: tdawson@postmedia.com | Twitter: tylerrdawson