News that Ontario schools could be heading back to in-person learning Monday has families waiting with bated breath to see if that will, in fact, be the case.
The provincial government had previously said schools would move to online learning until "at least" Jan. 17 amid widespread transmission of the omicron variant. The return to in-person learning was also dependent on public health trends and operational considerations.
Schools were shut last week as the government enacted other public health measures amid growing strain on the province's health-care system and pandemic-related staff shortages across essential work forces.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce is expected to announce the return to in-person learning at a news conference Wednesday.
Although news surrounding return to school has come from a senior government source with knowledge of the decision, not everybody is convinced the school bells will actually be ringing come Monday morning.
“Do I honestly think this government will stick to the Jan. 17 date? Absolutely not. This government is not known for early decisions,” said Chris St-Jean, adding she will believe it when she and her teenage daughters are actually on the way to school on Monday.
St-Jean, who works at a Barrie high school, admits her family has been fortunate in that they have been able to transition well between teaching from home and teaching from school.
“My kids are older, but not every parent who can work from home is able to do that because their children might be younger,” she told BarrieToday.
St-Jean says both of her children, aged 13 and 17, will return to in-person schooling as soon as it occurs.
“Both are double-vaxxed and very healthy. They both will take the appropriate precautions as best as they can, but school is the best place for them," she added.
St-Jean says being in the classroom allows her children — and other students — direct access to teacher support if they need it, whereas being online can be a little harder to muster the courage to ask questions for some kids.
“Both find it a challenge to stay focused during online learning and I can’t blame them for that," she said. "In addition, given I’ll be in the school building myself given my profession. There is little point in keeping them home when I’ll be exposed to COVID and a myriad other viruses daily in spite of my own efforts to continue to stay healthy.
“Their father is an essential worker and has been coming in and out of the house from his own workplace, so it makes sense to have the kids in school because whether they’re home or at school, the risk of exposure is the same in many ways," St-Jean said.
Springwater Township resident Tanya Melo said while she knows many families that are “going insane” with their kids at home, as well as the impact the closures are having on children's mental health, she’s concerned some people aren’t truly looking at the bigger picture.
“I keep asking myself, what happens to children’s mental health if they contract the virus and bring it home and infect parents (or) siblings? What about all those who have grandparents living with them... or the hospitals that are overwhelmed right now," Melo told BarrieToday. "Having all these children back in the classroom, with really no distancing, is only going to continue the spread.”
Melo’s daughter and son-in-law are both teachers and she said they all live in fear that he will bring the virus home to his four-month-old son.
“There is no easy or logical answer, it seems, to having kids home or back in school," she said.
Marie Reynolds is a stay-at-home parent of three young children, including one in senior kindergarten. She said she's happy to see her oldest daughter, Penelope, going back for academic reasons as she struggles to stay engaged online and misses seeing her friends and teachers in person.
That being said, Reynolds admits she has enjoyed the slower pace that learning at home has provided her busy family.
“No dressing up three kids and running out the door. We can go outside and play and bake; it's a bit more like homeschooling," said the Barrie mom. "We are lucky that we have the option of doing that."
Reynolds said she and her husband, who's a local high school French teacher, plan on sending their daughter back to school should the government hold true to its promise.
“If they made an announcement, then I guess I am pretty confident we are going back, but who knows. My kids have been fairly unaffected by closures, really. Louisa has continued daycare and they are so young they barely notice, besides gymnastics being cancelled,” she said.
Reynolds said both she and her husband believe the positives outweigh the negatives when it comes to kids being back in school.
As a teacher and a parent of five school-aged children ranging in age from five to 11, Eddy Rogers said he's happy to hear the schools are set to reopen next week, adding he and his wife will be sending their children back.
"At-home learning does not work well for them at all. Also, we have never felt that COVID has been a serious threat to the kids, not least in the omicron wave,” he said, adding it's an impossible task to be working parents and all-day Google Classroom enforcers while also staying sane.
While Rogers’ acknowledges he has seen a bright side to online instruction — in that educators have become very resourceful and creative with technology and it allows some kids to thrive — he doesn’t believe it’s the most natural or effective way of reaching the majority of students.
“It creates ugly and stressful situations as school reaches out from the computer screen into the home,” he said. "I do not fear for staff safety in the schools, and omicron is so widespread now that we just need to get our lives back to normal.
"The children's educational progress has suffered enough — I have seen it at home and at school.”
— With files from Canadian Press
