Grade 2 students participate in a counting game with their teacher Shawna Boodhoo on Aug. 31. -- NEWS PHOTO MO CRANKER
mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@mocranker
Students at most schools have been back for in-person classes for a few weeks now, and local school boards are reporting positive results so far.
Medicine Hat Public School Division opened schools on Aug. 31 and has not had to close any schools, says superintendent Mark Davidson.
“All of our schools are up and running and we haven’t had to close any or announce an outbreak – that’s good news,” he said. “We have our online hub up and running, with about 450 students receiving their programming online through the hub. “So far things are going well.”
Davidson says the school board is working to help students and staff adapt to a new routines, and a new normal version of school.
“We’re working to get everyone adjusted to all of the new rules and what it is like to be in school now,” he said. “There’s a lot of new measures about distancing, cohorts, masks and working to build new habits.
“I think that is taking a bit of work, but staff, parents and students are being patient and working hard.”
Davidson added instructors understand the new routines can be hard.
“It’s hard to function in a way that is so different than what you’re used to,” he said. “For example, students aren’t able to see all of their friendship group because of cohorting. That’s hard on them.
“Staff is also having less opportunity to socialize with their colleague as well.”
“School doesn’t feel like school has always felt, and we’re understanding of that.”
Before the school year started, MHPSD did not hire extra cleaning staff but put funds aside to do so if the need came up. Davidson says more are being hired.
“We’ve always had daytime custodial staff who cleaned during the day, but we’ve added full-time staff to our three biggest schools,” he said of Medicine Hat High School, Roy Wilson School and Crescent Heights High School. “In the next few days we’ll be adding hours to care-taking staff in order to add more staff to our schools.
“Our plan right from the start was to see if day staff we had was sufficient. They’re keeping up, but we want to give them help. We need to take care of our staff and make sure they aren’t burnt out.”
MHCBE
The Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education is also reporting positive results from the first few weeks of classes.
The catholic board opened schools with staggered start times for different grades and schools. Now fully running, superintendent Dwayne Zarichny says things are moving smoothly.
“Considering our circumstances and the context we’re dealing with, I am very pleased with the startup at every school,” he said. “I am really happy to see everyone back at school.”
Zarichny added the staggered start to classes helped everyone get into the swing of things.
“At Monsignor McCoy High School, they brought all of the new students in first to spend a full day in the school. That allowed them to have the run of the building and familiarize themselves with procedures,” he said. “It gave students a chance to find all the sanitization stations, get their textbooks without long lines and to figure out where all their classes are.
“I think that went really, really well.”
Zarichny has been out to a number of schools lately and says he is seeing students following the new procedures.
“Students have adapted really well to the new routines of more washing and sanitizing,” he said. “I was at St. Francis Xavier School (Wednesday) and was doing recess supervision. Students came out of their classes with their masks on and sanitized upon entrance and exit.
“Students are doing a tremendous job and staff has done an excellent job of preparing students.”
The catholic board hired one extra custodian at each school and says it is going well.
“We have a head custodian at the school all day every day and their focus is high-touch point cleaning and to maintain cleanliness,” said Zarichny. “We now have an evening worker coming in to clean everything overnight so students and staff have a clean school every morning.”
PRSD
Prairie Rose School Division superintendent Roger Clarke says things are good so far.
“Things have been pretty smooth in terms of overall startup,” he said. “We have a lot of COVID-19 strategies that we have built into our school days like masking, distancing, classroom setup, bus seating plans and sanitizing.
“With that said, things are going well right now.”
Clarke says a group of more than 100 students will learn from home this year.
“We have about 120 kids learning from home with our online programming and around 60 who have left the division,” he said. “That doesn’t mean our numbers are down, because we’re actually at a few more kids than last year – we just projected things a bit higher.
“The vast majority of our kids have come to school.”
Clarke says transportation is giving the school board issues right now.
“In March all of the drivers were laid off and so our contractors are working to hire them back,” he said. “We’re pleased to see that most of them are returning, but we’re finding there has been an impact on substitute drivers.
“If a driver is sick or can’t come to work, we’re having instances of not having a substitute driver. Sometimes with inclement weather we would see this as a problem, but now we’re seeing it just with drivers not being able to work.”
Clarke says the school will continue to follow provincial and AHS guidelines that are changing as time goes by.
“Every day there’s a chance we hear something new,” he said. “Us superintendents know that every day can bring a new challenge.”
