Staff at Hamilton’s public and Catholic school boards have been preparing for fully remote learning at the beginning of 2021, but the first day back may not be business as usual for all students.
Last week, the province announced that elementary students will be learning virtually for the first week of January as part of the Ontario-wide lockdown, with no in-person classes for high school students until Jan. 25 at the earliest.
The shift left some school boards scrambling to get devices ready to distribute to students, who had already gone home for the winter holidays.
Manny Figueiredo, director of education for the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, said the goal is to have any students who have been learning in-person and don’t currently have a device to pick one up on Monday, with classes resuming for those students only on Tuesday.
Speaking on Global News Radio 900 CHML’s Bill Kelly Show, Figueiredo said the vast majority of students will be able to continue learning on Jan. 4.
That includes all high school students, who are already equipped with the technology they need.
“We have a one-to-one deployment, so our secondary program will commence as of the first day. And we also have 9,000 students already in full remote programming in elementary, who already are set up, so that we expect to start, business as usual, on January 4th. But a little flexibility on the first day for those who are in-person who require a device.”
Although the Ministry of Education had asked boards to prepare for the possibility of fully-remote learning in early 2021, Figueiredo said the 6,000 devices that are being prepared for a Monday pick-up had been in-use in classrooms prior to the lockdown announcement, so they need to be ‘re-deployed’ — which involves being refreshed by the board’s I.T. team and cleaned, bagged, and prepared for distribution.
“We had hoped if we had heard two weeks prior, three weeks prior, we could have done that logistical work beforehand,” said Figueiredo. “Once we pull them away, we’re pulling them away from schools and re-distributing them across the district, so that takes some time.”
The board has ordered an additional 1,000 devices in order to equip more students with the tech they need to learn remotely.
Pat Daly, chair of the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board, said staff members have been hard at work ensuring students who need a device will have one and be ready to go on Monday.
“There probably will still be some (students) that don’t have everything they need, but we will respond as we become aware of those,” said Daly.
At this point, the province has not said whether fully remote learning will continue beyond the dates announced on Dec. 21.
Figueiredo said he still believes that the classroom is the safest place for students to be, citing 200 positive cases of COVID-19 in schools among 40,000 in-person students and 5,000 staff.
“Most of the positive cases, the majority of them, have been from community spread, not because of spread within the schools. So my hope is that it’s only this short period of time that the Ministry has put in place to prevent community spread over the holiday season to come into the schools, and that we resume our in-person model.”
If remote learning is extended, Figueiredo said the board is ready to adapt, but he said he hopes that won’t happen.
Over the past two weeks, HWDSB has reported more than 50 cases of COVID-19 among students and staff.
Four Hamilton public schools have active outbreaks, including Eastdale Elementary, R.A. Riddell Elementary, Sir Wilfred Laurier Elementary, and Lawfield Elementary.
An outbreak was also declared at the public board’s head office on Dec. 18, involving six staff.
Daly said he hopes remote learning isn’t extended beyond what the province has already outlined but said the Catholic board is also preparing for the worst-case scenario.
“We are … indicating to staff and would encourage parents to anticipate that it may go longer. Again, we are really, really hoping that’s not the case.”
According to the latest numbers from Hamilton’s Catholic board, there are ten active cases of COVID-19 among students and one among staff.
There are three active outbreaks at St. Thomas More Secondary, Immaculate Heart of Mary Elementary, and Our Lady of the Assumption Elementary.
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