Sask. teachers will begin working again Monday to provide learning opportunities for students

Saskatchewan teachers will soon be teaching lessons once again.

The Government of Saskatchewan’s education response planning team gave an update on Friday, saying teachers at the 27 school divisions in the province will be working from home or at schools on Monday.

The learning opportunities will be for both high school and elementary school students and will be optional.

Clint Repski, assistant deputy minister of education, said the government has rolled out the framework the school divisions will work under and it’s now up to the divisions to best determine how to roll it out.

“When we created the framework, one of the things that was put in place was we’re trying to emphasize the multiple modes of delivering instruction and this includes everything from paper to phone calls to the online environment,” Repski said on a teleconference with media.

Repski said the school divisions know how to best deliver the content to their students because they will know the different needs of the students.

“I think the school divisions are going to be reaching out to their families and their students and they’re going to be having those conversations about how to best meet the learning needs of students and they will be having those conversations directly,” he said.

Classes in the province were suspended indefinitely on March 16 due to ongoing concerns amid COVID-19. The province’s total as of Friday is 104 cases.

Repski said 13 school divisions in the province already use some form of online classes and other school divisions have purchased them for themselves in the past.

Repski said school divisions are following the advice of Dr. Saqib Shahab, the province’s chief medical health officer.

“We’re asking our school divisions to first protect their staff and students,” Repski said.