Schools across the province were empty five years ago, as the COVID pandemic ramped up across the planet. (ID 195843411 © Harry Rendón Mayorga | Dreamstime.com)

By Cam Lee

Horizon SD COVID reflection

Concerns, challenges, and opportunities: Horizon Director of Education reflects on COVID

Mar 20, 2025 | 12:00 PM

It seems like eons ago, but yesterday at the same time.

Students and school staff province-wide were sent home five years ago this week due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The time that followed was marked with uncertainty, fear, and concern for what was to come, both health-wise and academically.

Horizon School Division Director of Education Kevin Garinger looked back at that time in an interview with northeastNOW. He said nobody had a policy or book on how to navigate a pandemic and all that entails.

Making things more challenging for the Horizon School Division was that they had to deal with five different health authorities at the time. Garinger said that each health authority was handling things a little differently, which made it challenging to communicate to families about the latest outbreaks or other information.

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The major impact from COVID was on the youth of the division and across the province, according to Garinger. Having students wear masks and social distance upon their return to school in the fall of 2020 was a significant challenge for the students and staff. Garinger said having students in Kindergarten and Grade 1 not being able to see the teachers’ mouths due to masks made it more difficult for them to develop language and reading skills.

Families were also impacted strongly by the pandemic, stated Garinger. There were some that lost family members. Others weren’t able to do their schoolwork in the same way. Socialization among students also suffered during that time.

“When you’re not able to socialize in the same way outside of your family unit, it became very challenging for our children,” Garinger explained.

Children learn from and connect with each other through socialization and not having that available had a significant impact. Garinger said there was no manual on how to handle that during a pandemic, and the division needed to focus on the health and safety of the children first and foremost.

Garinger said staff also had to overcome challenges, having to wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) when students returned, and how they would address instruction in a different way.

“We went through a couple of years of having to do things completely different in education, different from where we wanted to be,” said Garinger.

There was a province-wide dip in reading scores during the pandemic, and Garinger said only recently have things begun to turn around in that regard. He added what they learned through COVID is when the system goes away from engaging in the “great practices”, student learning suffers. The focus, according to Garinger, is always to improve.

He said there were some positives that came out of the pandemic. One was the use of technology to improve communication, by using virtual meetings for both groups and one-on-one with families. Garinger said fortunately, the division was already holding virtual meetings before COVID struck.

“Those types of virtual opportunities certainly came out of it, and meetings with parents and having to do things – learning from home – in a different way certainly have provided us with understandings about how we could do that more effectively.”

Garinger said the pandemic forced the division to use that technology more frequently and on a larger scale.

Another significant development from COVID was the prioritization of mental well-being for youth. Garinger said the job of the division is to help support and prioritize mental health as much as possible.

“We want every one of our children to be well,” said Garinger. “We’ve also come to a clear realization about the impacts of social media and those types of things on youth and how that has impacted them and made it challenging for them in terms of development and what they’re doing every day.”

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Cam.lee@pattisonmedia.com