Hub co-principal Warren Buckler speaks with a group of teachers who will teach virtually this school year. -- NEWS PHOTO MO CRANKER
mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@mocranker
The Medicine Hat Public School Division is accepting applications for its online learning hub, and hundreds have already registered.
The Medicine Hat At-Home Learning Hub will be launched at the beginning of the school year. It will offer programming for Early Learning students, all the way to Grade 9.
The Hub will be housed at Southview Community School and will be overseen by co-principals Warren Buckler and Tricia Unreiner.
“The Hub is an opportunity for families who are, for whatever reason, risk averse about sending kids back to school,” said Buckler. “Whether they are not comfortable with kids going back, or if there are health concerns – this will allow them to access quality, rigorous, teacher-led instruction.
“We will be covering the entire program of studies. In the spring, in the emergency learning, we were focused on a few key areas. With the Hub we will be teaching everything.”
Buckler and Unreiner were both vice-principals last year and are now focused on making the Hub the best it can be. Buckler spent the year at Roy Wilson Learning Centre. Unreiner was at George Davison School.
Students will have daily contact with their teacher though the Hub. Students and teachers will connect through their devices on Google video chat.
“They’ll be in contact every single day,” said Buckler. “There will be opportunities to work with their classmates and directly with their teacher.”
The Hub is starting the year out with 14 teachers staffed, but that can quickly change.
“I think our staffing is going to be dynamic throughout the school year,” said Buckler. “Our staff size will depend on enrolment.
“We’ll be monitoring staffing as the school year goes on.”
All the Hub teachers applied to do so for this school year.
At the junior high level, the school board has hired subject area specialists. For example, the junior high math teacher will teach math in Grade 7, 8 and 9. For elementary, teachers will be more general and teach a range of subjects.
While the teaching staff is based out of Southview Community School, students learning through the Hub will never be asked to attend the building.
“Students won’t go to our building, but we also don’t want them staring at screens all day,” said Unreiner. “Students in the Hub can get meaningful, hands-on learning by meeting in small groups to go do something like a pond study.
“We’ve also had conversations about having online lessons recorded so students can look at them at different times.”
The co-principals said they want to see clubs form through the Hub, where students meet virtually.
Unreiner says the Hub has been in the works for months.
“We’ve been wondering for a while about how we’re going to support kids coming back to school, but also to make sure students at home aren’t left behind,” she said. “We’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Now we’re working to make this happen.”
The co-principals agreed that the Hub will offer a high-quality education to those who choose to use it.
“We learned a lot during the emergency online learning period this year,” said Unreiner.
“We saw some kids struggle with the online learning, while others really dove deep into their studies and loved it.
“Our hope is that the Hub is as similar as possible to in-school instruction. We want those positive parts of classroom learning to be present in what we’re doing.”
Registration for the Hub is open and can be found on http://www.mhpsd.ca
