Director’s Message
Dear students and families,
I wanted to reach out to you today to provide you with the latest information on how COVID-19 is affecting student learning in Ontario and in our schools. The Premier announced this afternoon that schools and school-based child care centres will remain closed until May 4, 2020, to protect the health and safety of students and staff. This extension is being made on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer of Health of Ontario.
What We Know
Learning will continue, the government is launching the second phase of Learn at Home. The province will provide additional tools for at-home learning to ensure students from kindergarten to Grade 12 can finish their academic year and get the credits they need to graduate.
Your Teachers/Educators Will Reach Out
As we stated in our email earlier this week, your child’s educators will reach out to determine how to best meet your child’s learning needs. They are hard at work developing differentiated learning plans for each student.
Provincial Guidelines Regarding Teacher-led Learning
- Kindergarten-Grade 3: Five hours of work per student a week, focusing on literacy and math.
- Grades 4-6: Five hours of work per student a week, focusing on literacy, math, science and social studies.
- Grades 7-8: 10 hours of work per student a week, focusing on math, literacy, science and social studies.
- Grades 9-12: Three hours of work per course a week, focusing on achieving/completing credits toward graduation.
All of our curricula will continue to integrate religious education and gospel values. Additional subject areas will be determined by your classroom teacher.
Hours refer to the approximate amount of time students would spend on the work assigned by teachers. Educators will be open to adjustments to reflect individual or family circumstances.
There will be a final report card issued for all students.
Graduating Students
The Ministry of Education and Boards across the province will continue to prioritize and support students on track to graduating. In order to meet admission requirements for post-secondary education, graduating students will be receiving marks by April 23rd on work completed by that time.
Final report cards with marks will also be issued. Discussions are being held with colleges and universities about the adaptations required to support the admission process for students applying for post-secondary education, and further information will be provided.
The graduation requirement to complete 40 hours of community involvement is suspended for this school year. Community involvement hours that have been completed will be recorded on the report cards of graduating students.
Access to Technology
We recognize that many families in our community do not have access to devices to engage in a full online curriculum. At this time the emergency measures that require everyone to stay at home do not allow for students or parents to access schools. We are working with Ottawa Public Health to have an approved distribution system for those with the greatest needs. Once we have the approval we will work with our school Principals to distribute available devices from schools where needed and to support students in accessing teacher based learning activities in an online environment. We are still collaborating with Ottawa Public Health to determine the most effective and safest way to distribute school-provided devices to support at-home learning for families without access to technology or devices. As soon as an approved plan has been finalized, we will share this information with you.
Co-operative Education
Students currently enrolled in cooperative education or participating in a Specialist High Skills Major program will work with their teachers to modify their programs to meet curriculum expectations.
Thank You
In the coming days, we hope to be able to help support educators and students as we all navigate this new way of teaching and learning online while we continue to respect physical distancing.
We know our students and parents continue to have many unanswered questions. We commit to communicating with you on a regular basis as we work through these challenging times.