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Students to return to class in September

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School’s in for September in Brantford, Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk.

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Full-time in-class learning for all elementary and secondary students will resume with classes taking place Monday to Friday.

Both the Grand Erie and Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic school boards outlined their plans for the upcoming school year Thursday afternoon after Premier Doug Ford and Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced that all publicly funded schools in the province will reopen with students returning to classrooms. This decision will be paired with enhanced cleaning and health and safety protocols due to COVID-19.

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Under the guidelines announced Thursday, all students in Grades 4 to 12 will be required to wear non-medical cloth masks while students in Kindergarten to Grade 3 will be encouraged to use non-medical cloth masks.

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The province will provide medical masks to teachers and school staff.

“The safety and well-being of students and staff remains our highest priority,” said Brenda Blancher, Grand Erie’s director of education. “Recognizing that it’s now been nearly six months since we’ve been in the classroom together, Grand Erie will have social and emotional supports available for students in the fall as we know this will be a challenging time for all.”

For all local public and Catholic students, classes begin Sept. 8.

Students will be coming to schools that will have enhanced cleaning protocols in place that cover touch points and common areas and objects.

Time will be made available for regular hand-washing and, in places where that isn’t available, hand-sanitizer will be used. Directional signage will be placed to assist with physical distancing requirements, and schools will consider staggering nutrition, lunch and recess breaks.

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The Grand Erie board is requiring families to keep home ill students and those exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms, the board said in a statement. School visitors also will be limited.

The board said it will work with the Brant County and Haldimand-Norfolk health units in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak in any school or administration building.

Families new to Grand Erie are asked to register students by no later than Aug. 13. Parents who wish to keep their children at home in September are required to contact the board at info@granderie.ca by no later than Aug. 23. Grand Erie has more than 26,000 students in 58 elementary and 14 secondary schools within Brantford and the counties of Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk.

Rick Petrella, chair of the Catholic board, said board’s final return to school plan will be discussed at a board meeting Aug. 10. The plan will include issues such as busing, how to deal with suspected COVID-19 cases and outbreaks, among other issues.

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“As a parent, I am pleased that a decision has been made, and, with this clarity provided by the Ministry of Education, we can finalize the implementation of our opening plan to include the new guidelines set out by the ministry,” Petrella said in a statement. “Although some may feel uncertainty around some of the elements of the provincial government’s direction, please know that Public Health Ontario has established protocols that that will be part of the plan that the board will follow and implement.”

He said all details of the board’s plan will be released after it is approved.

The provincial government pledged to spend $309 million to help make schools safe, with the largest amounts for extra staffing, purchasing of personal protective equipment and masks, and hiring 500 public health nurses.

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Health and safety measures include physical distancing and grouping of students into cohorts. Physical distancing will be enforced through measures such as keeping desks apart, spreading children into areas such as gyms and cafeterias, staggering lunches and recess, teaching outside and limiting the number of students in hallways and bathrooms.

Class sizes set by the province for elementary schools will not be reduced.

Parents will still have the option of choosing online schooling at home if they are uncomfortable sending their children back to class. Plans call for elementary students to spend the day with classmates in their cohort, including recess and lunch.

All high schools will be encouraged to adopt timetabling that allows students to belong to no more than two cohorts. That could mean a “quadmester” system where students take two courses at a time during a school year of four semesters.  Currently at most high schools, students take four courses in each of two semesters.

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Schools will be allowed to offer clubs and sports as long as physical distancing is maintained and equipment is cleaned and disinfected between use.

Students of every age “with a high level of special education needs who are unable to study remotely” will be able to attend school every day.

The government had been under pressure to reopen schools full time. Parents, pediatricians and public health authorities have warned that keeping children out of school hurts their mental health and social development as well as setting them back academically.

Allowing parents to get back to work is also key to reopening the economy.

“School reopening is critical to learning and development for Ontario’s students, and a critical support for families to get back to work and allow for the re-opening of the economy,” said the government’s release.

Education unions, some parents and opposition parties at Queen’s Park had called on the government to lower class sizes to 15 students in elementary schools, hiring thousands of teachers and acquiring space in community centres and other buildings to hold classes. They also requested a significant increase in funding for everything from cleaning to school ventilation.

Vball@postmedia.com

twitter.com/EXPVBall

With files from Postmedia Network

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