(File photo/northeastNOW Staff)

By Cam Lee

NESD Planning Continues

North East School Division preparing for in-home schooling amid COVID-19

Mar 31, 2020 | 3:00 PM

The North East School Division is taking steps to deal with the ‘new normal’ made necessary thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The education sector had a one-week pause wrapped up on Monday, March 30. Director of Education Don Rempel said the break allowed school divisions to put frameworks together to respond to the educational needs of students and families.

Rempel said this week and next, staff members have been assigned to stay home, unless they are necessary to perform duties within some of the division’s facilities.

“Our teachers are networking with each other and school teams. They’re contacting families to assess the family needs and what resources they have available to support learning in the home,” Rempel told northeastNOW.

He said the teachers will then design supplemental learning plans that would go in effect after the Easter break.

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“Right now we’re setting up communication networks, understanding the needs of our families, sharing some information around supplemental learning and what that looks like for our students, and then we’ll be connecting in an ongoing basis after the Easter break,” Rempel said.

Two weeks ago, the division put their energy into ensuring their employees could work from home, according to Rempel. He said the division ensured they had business continuities last week, while this week the staff is linking together with supervisors and collaborating with each other, and staff is also connecting with families.

There is a challenge for many families who have neither reliable Internet access, or who do not own computers, iPads, or other devices that would allow students to learn online.

“We’re trying to do a needs assessment family-by-family and look and see what the required supports will be moving forward,” Rempel said.

The division is also designing policies and practices to safely look after staff as they prepare supports for students.

While the situation is unprecedented, the goal of the division is to keep people safe, while still providing learning capability for students.

“We do want parents to know that our teachers are very much willing to take responsibility for looking after the learning progress of our students, that’s not something they need to worry about solely on their own,” Rempel said. “There [are] a lot of resources available to families, and our teachers are very much willing to engage and support student learning over [these] next few weeks and months.”

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cam.lee@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @camlee1974