Students are back in class

By MO CRANKER on September 1, 2020.

mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@mocranker

Many students, teachers and parents were looking forward to Monday – the first day of school.

Classes were cancelled back in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with students across the province shifting to emergency online learning for the remainder of the school year.

This year, children and parents have the choice on whether students learn online or in the classroom.

Grade 6 Ross Glen School students Sophia Frederick and Sophie James say they are happy to be back.

“It’s good – it’s a little bit different, but we’re excited to be back,” said Frederick.

“The social distancing and the masks are the biggest changes,” said James. “For recess we have to stay in certain areas each day and we have lunch at different times.”

The Grade 6 friend duo says they struggled at times with the online learning and that they are coping well with wearing a mask at school.

“Not having your teacher there with you to help was hard,” said James. “When we were doing online, we didn’t have them around as much.”

“The masks aren’t too bad – it’s just different,” said Frederick. “We just need to get used to them.”

Grade 5 teacher Jaymi Roth is in her fourth year teaching and her second at Ross Glen. She says it felt good to be back with students.

“The first day for us this year is really going to be about building routines and helping kids with the new normal,” she said. “We’re going to talk about stress and things that are overwhelming us, and just really working to calm any nerves so we can all get back into a routine.”

Roth says her students were knocking hand washing, sanitizing and mask wearing out of the park.

“I was worried a bit this morning, but the kids are doing really well,” she said. “With this being Grade 5, the kids are a bit older and that helps. We’ve talked about keeping ourselves and others safe, and how important that is.

“I’m very impressed.”

The Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education also opened schools Monday. First-time principal Jamie Van Ham had her first day at St. Francis Xavier and says things went well.

“It was a busy day but it was a great day,” she said. “The students were really excited to be back and the teachers were excited to have them.”

Van Ham says kids are definitely capable of following the rules for this school year.

“The kids honestly outdid my expectations,” she said. “They worked really hard to get their routines down and didn’t complain.

“They were really positive about the whole situation and really wanted to be here.”

Ross Glen School principal Natosha Mastel says a lot of planning went into the day.

“We did a lot of planning and it went smoothly,” she said. “We had to do things differently this year, but we’ve made it work.

“The students I’ve talked to are excited and the parents are as well.”

She added that young people are smarter than some people make them out to be.

“Kids deserve more credit than they get,” she said. “We’ve made it clear with staff that there’s going to be a lot of teaching moments around masks and hand washing.”

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