Northern Ontario school board working on 3 different plans for new school year

The District School Board Ontario North East a board that covers an area stretching from Temagami to Hearst is busy working on three different plans to accommodate students in September.

This follows a directive from Ontario's education minister to get ready for a return to in-class learning with some modifications.

Lesleigh Dye, director of education for the board, said committees are already at work coming up with several different strategies.

"We've taken all of the categories that you'll find in the provincial plan so health and safety, personal protective equipment, the structure of the learning day, and there are many more," Dye said.

"We're trying to find the best possible experiences for our students and our staff with health and safety guiding that."

Plans are also in the works to accommodate special needs students, Dye said, something that should ease parents' worry.

"For students with special needs in our high support classrooms, coming each day perhaps not the entire school day but maybe a little bit of a later start and maybe an earlier exit, then our families might be used to that."

Families in her region might also appreciate the care they're taking to ensure that siblings are grouped together making sure they are in school on the same days.

"If we end up with a Monday-Wednesday-Friday, or perhaps a Tuesday-Thursday rotation so that all the children from that one family would be coming to their schools on the same day... and we are definitely looking at families where we have students in elementary as well as secondary."

As for distance learning, Dye said the work that teachers have done so far with their students serves as a solid foundation for any plan moving forward. She says it'sstill not without its challenges, though.

"One of the big pieces for us is the participation of our students in our distance learning," Dye said. "So we're trying to figure out strategies that will ensure each student is participating in the learning."

"There are still some students and some staff who do not have stable connectivity or internet at home," she said. "We have to find solutions so that that's not a barrier when we have to engage in distance learning."