On Friday, the government of Saskatchewan dropped the axe on what little remained of a possible return to a physical school year.

The announcement that schools would remain physically closed until at least September was likely not a surprise to most, however. With a month left in the school year, there would likely be little point in bringing children back for only a few short weeks before releasing them for the summer holidays.

According to Kyle McIntyre, the director of education with the Chinook School Division, the final month of the school year will proceed with the plans that have already been implemented, even as the Education Response Planning Team and the various school divisions begin the process of determining what the new year is going to look like.

McIntyre is a part of the Education Response Planning Team.

At the moment, he says that they are looking at possible scenarios and guidelines under three different possible realities:

  • A return to normal operations;
  • A partial return to school;
  • Continuing with some form of learning from home or learning from a distance. 

The three strategies, he says, are about being proactive to whatever the pandemic might throw at them.

"So right now very early in the pandemic, we don't know what the fall is going to look like. We don't know whether we're going to see a spike in the number of infections as re-open Saskatchewan begins to be implemented in the various stages."

The worst-case scenario is clearly one that would see the new school year begin as the second wave of COVID-19 is in progress, forcing the year to begin as it ended, with in-home learning.

McIntyre says that there is indeed a strong possibility that that is indeed the case. He adds however that if that happens, it would by necessity be under different conditions.

"The supplemental learning plan that the province developed they asked us to implement as education. There are some parameters that I think several of us would change if they had a do-over."

He makes it clear though, that he is not disparaging the supplemental learning plan that has been in place for the last couple of months. He speaks especially highly of the teachers that have been working extra hard to implement the educational paradigm; not only in keeping students engaged but also at times learning new methodologies and new approaches on the fly in order to do so.

And he feels that it's important to internalize those teachers' experiences when creating any new plan for the new school year if in-home learning is to continue. In essence, ironing out some of the wrinkles caused by having had to draft a new plan on short notice.

In short, a new school year is the opportunity to reflect on what worked, and change what didn't.

The biggest of those, in McIntyre's opinion, is the expectation of attendance.

"If we are going to continue to learn at home, the conditions or the expectations are going to have to be a little bit different. Students are not going to be able to opt-in or opt-out. Students are going to be expected to be attending regularly and completing assignments."

For example, as reported yesterday, the province's decision to provide a nominal passing grade and subsequently make the remaining year's supplemental learning entirely optional has meant a number of students reportedly choosing to simply enter the workforce while others simply choose to accept a poor grade in exchange for an extra two months of summer.

To McIntyre, if the worst-case scenario comes to pass and in-home learning is to continue, it cannot be opt-in or opt-out.

"If this is going to be an ongoing scenario, we have to make sure that kids have the requisite skills and understanding of the content to be successful in their future learning opportunities."

For the Chinook School Division and the Education Response Planning Team, the three possible scenarios are still in the very early stages; building best-practices and recommendations closely with Saskatchewan's chief medical health officer.

"Although we recognize that although we're planners in education, we also need to be nimble and we need to be responsive, If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."