Online class sizes grow for Regina Catholic School Division

The COVID-19 pandemic is leading to some new innovations from the Regina Catholic School Division.

While online learning isn’t a new option for high schools — it has been offered for 12 years — this is the first year the elementary classroom is also making the shift to the virtual realm. Much of the demand is due to the threat of COVID-19.

Amy Sanville is the principal of the Regina Catholic School Division’s learning online program. She began to help plan and develop the program earlier in the spring.

“My role has definitely changed and it has been busy but it has been really rewarding to see something that was just a concept in my mind back at the end of June now is an actual school with 350 students working through,” Sanville said.

The online high school program offers about 800 courses which students can take. Students are able to watch videos and access notes on their own time when registered for the classes. She said the demand for those classes has doubled.

“They would have some flexibility as to how they would manage their day. We recommend students who are taking five full classes would set a daily schedule to what they would see in a school so dedicated time to their math and English courses with enough flexibility that if they want to spend more time on English one day, they obviously could,” Sanville said.

She said the high school program was mostly used by students who couldn’t make a class work due to scheduling conflicts or athletes who are training in the day.

In its first year, the elementary school program has about 350 students. The program tries its best to simulate a normal day inside the classroom. Students will log in at 9 a.m., meet with their teacher and have class along with independent study. Recess and lunch is also built in.

“Throughout the day they will meet and do a combination of live lessons and some independent learning and they’re kept busy until about that 3:35 point,” Sanville said.

“Those little learners do need to have that connection. They’ve been out of school, some of them for six months, and because of situations, they may not have a lot of connections outside of that household.”

The students are also able to press a button during independent study to speak with a teacher at any point.