As Quebec’s COVID school restart ends, better online pivot key in case of second wave

MONTREAL — Quebec’s closely watched experiment reopening schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic winds down next week as the summer break begins, and the reviews are largely positive.

The province was the first in the country to reopen schools after COVID-19 brought regular life to a standstill, with children outside the Montreal region heading back to class in mid-May.

The federation representing administrators of the French school system outside Montreal says that about two-thirds of students returned to class once parents got comfortable with the idea.

The federation’s president, Nicolas Prevost, said things went relatively smoothly in the schools, though maintaining physical distancing on school buses was a challenge.

It will likely remain an issue in the fall — one that school boards across Canada have identified — if physical distancing requirements remain in place.

Quebec’s Education Department said in an email that as of June 5, roughly 50 per cent of public school students and two-thirds of private school students that had reopened returned to class.

As Prevost looks ahead to the fall, the biggest concern is potential staffing shortages. He noted many teachers, due to health reasons, did not return to the classroom while others have opted for retirement given pandemic concerns.

“I can foresee some lack of personnel,” Prevost said, estimating that 15 per cent of staff won’t return as schools are expected to shift from online to full-time in a classroom.

Last week, Quebec Education Minister Jean-Francois Roberge said the province’s experience reopening schools gave it the confidence to move ahead with a full-time reopening of elementary and high schools in the fall.

There will be physical distancing and enhanced hygiene practices. And until Grade 10, classrooms will have “bubbles” of up to six children who won’t have to maintain a distance between each other.

Health authorities said those bubbles will make it easier to identify and contain any COVID cases in schools.

The Education Department said since the return to class, 53 students and teachers have been diagnosed with COVID-19, but Roberge stressed this week the vast majority of those cases occurred outside the classroom, and there were no serious illnesses.

As of June 10, the province reported 10 students and 12 staff members were still ill.

Kevin Roy, head of the Quebec Federation of Parents’ Committees, said the reopening of schools for on-site instruction went well. But he added there are lessons to learn about remote teaching in the event a second wave of the virus hits.

“We understand that it was the first time in recent memory in Quebec, closing schools like this,” Roy said last week.

“At first, it was called vacation, then it was deemed optional, then we were told it was mandatory for some students, so it wasn’t clear, and it brought a lot of confusion to the education sector and parents too.”

Roy said for parents of students in high school — which did not reopen at all — and those students in the greater Montreal area who weren’t able to return to the classroom because of COVID-19, parents were thrust into a heavy monitoring role.

In many cases, families juggled multiple email messages, conflicting schedules and multiple platforms. “It required a lot of adjustments, a lot of resilience on the part of parents,” Roy said.

A survey of parents by the federation found two-thirds said managing class schedules was a problem, either because they were working full-time from home or felt out of their element.

Roy noted some English-speaking parents found they couldn’t help their children enrolled in French or French immersion classes because their own language skills weren’t strong enough.

The Eastern Townships School Board, east of Montreal, saw just one-third of elementary students return.

Teachers taught with homemade masks, but everyone involved in the return to class seemed to enjoy it and they respected the new restrictions, board chairman Michael Murray said.

Murray said there are still many things to be ironed out before the fall — bus transport, cafeterias, school schedules chief among them.

“Transportation by school bus is extremely critical, and the indications are still that public health requires us to have less than half of the capacity of the bus filled — approximately 23 students per bus,” Murray said. “There was no acknowledgment this would create a major challenge.”

Murray also raised concerns about using bubbles at the primary school level.

“That might be possible in secondary school, but in elementary school that’s a ridiculous suggestion to make, teachers have to work with the kids, they don’t stand in front of the class and lecture at that age,” Murray said.

English and French school service centres — the governments replacement for school boards — are tasked by the Education Department with coming up with a Plan B should a second wave of the pandemic hit.

Roy, of the parents’ committee, hopes parents will be consulted this time.

“Parents lived through the other side of all this, they saw what went well and what didn’t and they have solutions for the decision makers,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 21, 2020.

Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press