What schools in Lethbridge might look like this fall

Some of the questions it will ask will include:

Committing to in-person or at-home learning
For families in areas where busses would normally pick students up, do you have an alternate way of getting your child to school?

Once the results of the survey have been compiled, schools will have to assign teachers to at-home learning cohorts and which students will be physically present in which classrooms.

“We’ll see a different nature of supervision where we try to keep students at a distance where possible…schools have certainly been thoughtful about what that looks like in terms of student engagement and student activity in the classroom.”

Teachers will have to plan for how their classrooms will be structured with how desks will be organized and spaced, and will teach their students about the importance of safety protocols.

Gilmore recognizes that children can be rowdy at times, especially at younger ages, so no plan will be 100 per cent foolproof, but she has confidence in her staff.

“It’s astonishing what our elementary teachers and support staff can do when they work their magic with student management in the classroom, and so, certainly students are rambunctious. The handwashing, hand sanitization, exiting the building, coming into the building, the egress, and I think schools have a lot of structures in place to make sure those things happen.”

A big component of school operations this year will be for public health requirements.

Gilmore says they are in the process of ordering hand sanitizer stations, face masks, stickers to indicate directions of travel, and other items.

There have been conflicting reports on whether schools would be receiving additional money to make these purchases. Premier Jason Kenney said this week that more money would be allocated to school boards, but the Alberta Teachers’ Association refuted that.

We asked Gilmore what the situation is for schools in Lethbridge.

“Did school divisions get more money to deal with the costs of COVID-19? No. Did school divisions get more money this current school year under the envelope of what’s called plant operations and maintenance? Yes, we did. Was it an extravagant amount of money? No, it wasn’t.”

At this time, she says the Lethbridge School Division has already maxed out funding allotted for social distancing items having spent around $500,000, so if it turns out that they need more money, they will have to figure out where they can pull additional funds from.

Part of the spending will allow for custodial staff to spend more time in schools and ensure surfaces are sanitized.

“Depending upon the school and the structure of the school and the needs of the school, we’ve extended some caretaking hours so that we’ve got more caretakers in the building at the time the children are in the building, because of course, the cleaning protocols will call for ongoing cleaning of the high-touch areas.”

Parents will only be allowed to enter school buildings “out of necessity”. Plans are being developed for picking up and dropping students off.

More details on Alberta’s school re-entry plan can be found here or in the videos below.

by David Opinko

What schools in Lethbridge might look like this fall

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