The decision to send your child back to school or to learn virtually was a difficult one. You made that decision knowing you could change your mind come November. Please take this time to review your choice and make a final decision for the rest of the school year. Parents will receive a form this week asking them to submit change requests. We will attempt to approve all requests; however, we are dependent on staffing and available space.
Requesting to move from virtual to in-school learning
Kindergarten to Grade 8
If your child is currently in virtual learning, you should have received a form last week asking if you want your child to switch to in-person learning at their home school as of November 9. If you do, we will assign your child a homeroom class. The deadline for switching from virtual to in-school learning was Friday, October 16th.
Can my child move to in-school learning after November?
No, you will not be able to switch to in-school learning after November. Changing from in-person learning to virtual or vice versa is complicated due to staffing, provincial limits on class sizes, and ensuring proper physical distancing. Emergency situations will always be considered on a case by case basis. As a Catholic School Board, we will continue to support the wellbeing of our school communities.
Grades 9 to 12
We are now planning for the second semester, which begins February 1, 2021. If your child is currently in the Virtual Academy, you will receive a form this week asking if you want your child to switch to in-person learning at their home school as of February 1. We will support as many requests as possible, but all decisions will be based on staffing and space availability.
Requesting to move from in-school to virtual learning
Kindergarten to Grade 8
If your child is currently registered for in-person learning, you will receive a form this week asking if you want your child to switch to in-person learning at their home school as of November 9. We will support as many requests as possible, but all decisions will be based on staffing and space availability. All families submitting a request form will be contacted once a decision has been made.
Grades 9 to 12
We are now planning for the second semester, which begins February 1, 2021. If your child is currently registered for in-person learning, you should have already received a form by early next week asking if you want your child to switch to virtual learning as of February 1. We will support as many requests as possible, but all decisions will be based on staffing and space availability. All families submitting a request form will be contacted once a decision has been made.
Why are there limited spaces in virtual classrooms?
We’re hearing a lot of questions around space availability in virtual classrooms and parents want to know why we have a waiting list. Moving a student from in-school to virtual learning is typically more challenging than moving from virtual to in-person learning. Here’s why:
- Virtual learners make up a significant portion of our overall student population and we had more families choose virtual learning than our preliminary surveys indicated.
- The provincial limits on the number of students in each class also apply to virtual classes.
- The pool of available qualified teachers and the funding to pay for them is limited.
- We cannot continue to collapse in-person classes in schools to reassign a teacher to a virtual class. In some instances, collapsing classes would result in a combined class at the provincial maximum number of students. This would contravene our goal of having smaller class sizes for in-person learning to maximize the distance between students.
What if I didn’t get the request forms?
If you would like to request that your child switch between virtual or in-person learning (as of November 9 for Kindergarten to Grade 8, or February 1 for Grades 9 to 12) and you did not receive the form, please email us:
- virtual.elementary@ocsb.ca (Kindergarten to Grade 6)
- virtual.academy@ocsb.ca (Grade 7 to 12)