Back to remote learning for some Manitoba students

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This article was published 05/01/2022 (1500 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Most kindergarten to Grade 12 students in Manitoba will kick off the first week of their winter semester from home, the province announced Tuesday.

Online classes won’t apply to K-6 students of critical service workers, high-risk students and students with special learning needs, who can all attend school in person if no alternative care is available.

However, the rest of Manitoba’s student population will attend virtual classes for the week in order to give school officials and health-care workers more time to prepare for the return of widespread in-person learning on Jan. 17.

“This phased-in approach will allow school divisions and schools to have more time to prepare operational plans, including planning for potential staffing shortages and expected absenteeism due to isolation requirements,” Education Minister Cliff Cullen said at Tuesday’s news conference.

Throughout the week of remote learning, child-care facilities that offer 12 months of service, including centres in schools, will remain open.

However, these licensed centres and child-care homes can also apply for additional funding starting Jan. 10 to offset the loss of parent fees.

In December, Cullen pushed the return to school to Jan. 10, telling the public the province needs a couple of extra days to assess the impact of the highly infectious omicron variant.

Now that the province has reported more than 7,000 COVID-19 cases since Friday, deputy chief provincial public health officer Dr. Jazz Atwal said Tuesday that the time was right to put these additional safety measures in place.

“We know in-person learning is best for students, but we are still learning about how the omicron variant will affect our health-care system and Manitobans in the long term,” he said.

“Given that so much is still unknown about the omicron variant, we are moving quickly on the return to school option to give parents the time they need to make plans for remote learning next week.”

When asked about why the province didn’t institute remote learning before the winter break — when chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin was already forecasting more than 1,000 cases a day for January — Atwal replied by saying they didn’t have enough information to make that call until now.

“We were hoping we would have a lot of information even by now, even by last week actually,” he said. “But it looks like it will take another week to really tease out some of that important information we need in relation to severe outcomes and omicron.”

Premier Heather Stefanson, who also attended Tuesday’s news conference, defended her government’s overall response to the emergence of the omicron variant, characterizing the approach as being “proactive.”

“Our government’s No. 1 priority is to protect the health and well-being of all Manitobans, especially our most vulnerable,” she said. “As a mother of two, nothing matters more than the health and safety and education of my children. As parents, we want to give our children every opportunity to learn, create, play [and] chase their dreams safely.”

Tuesday’s announcement comes mere days after Quebec and Ontario announced similar back-to-school plans for January.

However, not everyone is happy with the Manitoba government’s latest shift to remote learning.

A Brandon School Division teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Sun following Tuesday’s announcement that one week is simply not enough time to properly prepare for in-person learning under the shadow of omicron.

“We still have a few classrooms that are not strict on mask-wearing,” the teacher wrote in a Facebook message.

“Not everyone is on the same page. I work at two different schools in the division. Teachers are still doing a vast majority of their own cleaning. I want students in school learning — I just don’t know how we can go about that in a safe [manner] when schools are packed to the brim.”

Meanwhile, parent Rana Wilkinson has mixed feelings about Tuesday’s announcement, since her six-year-old daughter, who attends Valleyview Centennial School, does not thrive in a remote learning environment.

Having already endured a couple of rounds of remote learning since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Wilkinson said she believes the benefits of physically attending class — including improved academic performance and mental health — outweigh the risks of omicron.

“In-person learning is where our children need to be,” she said over the phone.

“However, I can understand people who have an immunocompromised family member or something else that makes them not want their child to go to school. They should be able to have that choice as well.”

Last January, the province mandated a two-week remote learning period for students in grades 7 to 12 for the beginning of that winter semester.

Schools in Brandon and Winnipeg capped off the 2020-21 academic year in remote learning due to the third wave of the pandemic, with the province planning a return to full in-person learning in the fall.

Manitoba has recorded at least 2,937 COVID-19 cases in K-12 schools since the current school year began on Sept. 7, 2021. More than 80 per cent of these cases (2,361) involve students.

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