Quebec School Reopening Rules Will Restrict Students

With some Quebec schools set to reopen next week, parents are facing a tough choice to send their kids back to class under restrictive and ambiguous rules or continue to keep them at home. And what theyre contemplating may foreshadow what other Canadian classes will look like in the fall if they resume in other provinces.

Elementary schools and daycares outside of the Montreal area are scheduled to reopen on Monday after shutting down on March 13. The reopening date in the Montreal area was pushed back to May 25 as COVID-19 cases in hospitals have not stabilized, Premier Francois Legault announced Thursday.

Returning to school is voluntary, and its expected that not all teachers will report for duty .

Students must stay in personal space

School will hardly be back to normal the province has laid out strict guidelines , which many have already said are nearly impossible for children to follow, such as staying two metres away from each other. As well, playgrounds, libraries and computer labs are closed.

School boards have sent out more detailed parameters. The English Montreal School Board, for example, has informed parents there will be no music, drama, art, or physical education classes, and students may not have the same teachers or even be in the same class as before. A maximum of 15 students are allowed per classroom but proper spacing may result in there only being adequate space for eight to 10 children, said the board.

Students must stay in their own personal space of two metres by two metres, including at lunchtime. No one can use the water fountains.

This is what returning to school will look like in Quebec later this month. My friends there are choosing not to return their kids. If faced with these conditions, I would make the same choice, but I am working from home. pic.twitter.com/q9CzgoUYFt

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This is what returning to school will look like in Quebec later this month. My friends there are choosing not to return their kids. If faced with these conditions, I would make the same choice, but I am working from home. pic.twitter.com/q9CzgoUYFt
Kate Baggott (@baggyk) May 5, 2020

Several parents told HuffPost Canada theyre worried about their children sitting in a classroom for several hours where they cannot interact properly with their friends and teachers, with the additional risk of them contracting COVID-19.

Im angry that I have to send them in under the circumstances because I have no other choice, said Nadia Barberio, a mother of two elementary school kids in Montreal.

Barberio and her husband have both been working full time through the pandemic. Their children have been in Quebecs emergency daycares while the couple are at work.

But as the province starts to reopen and businesses ramp back up, Barberio wont be afforded the same flexible schedule that helped her manage her kids during the pandemic. With no family in the area, she feels she has no choice but to send them back to school.

My kids have ADHD [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder], she said. They already have to move more than the regular child and now youre adding to the fact where they have to sit at their desk, they have to eat their lunch there, they have to do everything there this worries me.