Parents in Southwestern Ontario are ready for kids to get back in the classroom after Ontario’s medical officer of health spoke out in support of the move this week.
On Tuesday, Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s top doctor, said he would like to see students return to the classroom before the province starts reopening in mid-June.
The response from parents to Global’s request for comment was overwhelmingly in support of letting children finish off the school year in the classroom.
“They want to go back. When we watched the 6 o’clock news last night, and the top doc talked about it, that perked them up, and my older son thought it was happening right away,” said parent of two Steven Kirkpatrick.
Kirkpatrick has two boys who are in Grade 5 and senior kindergarten in the Thames Valley District School Board in London. Kirkpatrick said his wife leaves for work early, and he works weekends, so he is the one home helping with online learning throughout the day.
“It’s a fight to get them online because they don’t like online schooling,” he said.
“The last couple of weeks it’s been a fight to get them on, they hate sitting in front of a computer.”
Even though it’s not a sure thing, Kirkpatrick said his sons have missed out on a lot this year, and they miss their friends, so the chance of them getting to finish the school year off with some normalcy is a welcome sign.
The same is true for mother of two, Leah Robinson, whose two children in grade 1 and 2 attend a french first language school in Woodstock.
“I 100 per cent think they should be back in school full-time,” she said.
“I think it’s important for everyone’s mental and physical health as well as social, even more so than educational.”
Robinson said she is lucky to have an understanding boss who is letting her work from home, but with two young kids both trying to learn online it’s “very chaotic all day every day.”
As the province starts to plan for reopening, she thinks schools should be top of mind.
“To be opening patios and shopping but not having it a priority to open schools is not right,” Robinson said.
During Tuesday’s news conference, Williams told reporters, “Schools should be the last to close and first to open.”
COVID-19 cases continue to drop throughout the province, which remains in a stay-at-home order. On Wednesday, the province reported 1,095 new cases, nearly a quarter of the more than 4,000 daily cases seen during the peak in April.
There has been no word yet from the premier or minister of education on if schools will reopen, but Craig Smith, president of the local Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, said opening right now might no be the best decision.
“As much as I think it’s understood remote learning is not ideal, it is consistent,” Smith said.
“Given the time of year where we are, with the final phase of the school year to have this happen at this time when numbers are still relatively high, it’s causing some real concern.”
Smith said needed updates for better ventilation and filtration systems have still not happened.
“The perspective at this point would be given where we are in the school year, it would be better to keep things where they are and really focus on making sure everything is in place for a safe and robust reopening in the fall.
Neither the TVDSB nor the London District Catholic School Board (LDCSB) has any information on is schools will be opening.
Linda Staudt, director of education for the LDCSB, said if a decision is made they could hear back in a week or so.
“If the students were able to return for three or four weeks it would be wonderful to have them back with their classmates and with their teachers so we could close out the year in person,” said Staudt
“We are hoping like everyone else the news will be positive and we are seeing in our area and the province the numbers are going down, so there is a great deal of hope.”
Looking ahead to the new school year in September, Staudt was optimistic as more teachers and even students as young as 12 able to get the vaccine.
“We do truly have hope for September that we will return to normal programming.”
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