While summer vacation enters its first week after another unpredictable school year due to COVID-19, officials with the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB) in London, Ont., are highlighting an increase in summer school enrollment and student participation.
Tracey Langelaan, superintendent of student achievement at TVDSB said virtual signup numbers, also referred to as New Credit eLearning courses, are “through the roof.”
“We have over 3,000 students that are registered virtually,” she said. “We have about 270 students that are attending in person New Credit, (and) we have our largest cohort of students that are participating in summer co-op right now with over 100 students.”
According to Langelaan, summer enrollment numbers continue to increase year after year. She said the influx is not only related to disruptions brought on by the pandemic, but also goes hand-in-hand with the diversity of options made available for students.
“Some of the benefits that the pandemic taught us is how we can deliver learning differently,” she explained. “It’s really opened the door for students who perhaps are not able to provide transportation to an in-person site (and) it extends that flexibility to families.
“It also extends that flexibility to our staff as well, who are able to kind of balance the nuances of their summer vacation, but still offer virtual programming for students,” Langelaan added.
However, over the past year, TVDSB among other school boards have been dealing with a rise in staff absences.
In April 2022, TVDSB associate director Jeff Pratt provided a statement to Global News saying that the increase in absences is “a result of staff illness.”
John Bernans, president of the Thames Valley district of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF), says that mental health struggles are also to blame for the rise of staff shortages.
“Teachers and education workers have been struggling to support students through the pandemic with no additional resources,” Bernans said. “It’s taken a toll on (their) health.”
He added that the difficulty in planning and lack of available preparation work added additional strain for education workers.
“While things started to return to normal by second semester, or the end of the year, it does take a while to kind of recover from all of these additional stresses that had been put on them,” Bernana said.
“It’s not surprising that they’re not able to take on the additional duties of summer school right now,” he added. “So, it’s not surprising that there would be some impact on the ability to provide summer school.”
According to Langelaan though, some educators are still willing to extend their teaching into the summer months.
“We’re always able to find teachers that are willing to extend their employment into July which really speaks to the commitment of the educators that we work with and their commitment to students and their learning,” she said.
Langelaan said that before the end of the school year, credit recovery and credit rescue opportunities are also available across TVDSB schools.
“It really extends to students the opportunity to fulfill some of the curricular expectations that perhaps they didn’t get a chance to finish throughout the school year,” she said. “They can work directly with their teacher to submit perhaps any outstanding assignments or to conference with teachers just to establish and to solidify the end of that course.”
With regards, Langelaan extends her gratitude towards TVDSB educators.
“We’re really lucky that we have so many educators that are willing to step up to this,” Langelaan said. “It’s also an acknowledgement of their kind of moral responsibility to support students through this era of learning, recovery and reengagement.”
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