Alternative schooling options adapt for COVID-19 school year

Some alternative schools in Regina are determining their own ways to protect their students while ensuring they can return to classroom learning this fall.

One such option is Cornwall Alternative School (CAS). The private school is a small institution for students in grades 7 to 10 who have experienced difficulty in a regular school setting.

Students at CAS come from all over the city and are referred to CAS based on their academic history and behaviour.

“We support them to help stay in school and learn what caused them to have difficulties in other schools and to help them develop new methods of handling situations so they can be successful when they go back,” said principal and CEO Eunice Cameron.

Students participate in regular school classes and spend two afternoons a week learning life skills. An outreach worker and an addictions counsellor are available to students throughout the week and an elder visits students once every two weeks.

Cameron said students will often come to the school several grades behind for multiple reasons, like not showing up for class, behavioural difficulties, addictions problems, or unstable home environments. Others have just been released from institutions or are involved in the justice system and the courts.

Regina Huda School (RHS) is a Muslim school that began in 1999. It has grown to about 600 students and 60 staff and combines Saskatchewan curriculum with Islamic teachings.

Islamic instructors at the school teach students Islamic studies, Quaranic studies and Arabic.

“It’s based on their Muslim faith and so the Quaran is very important — that is the book that they follow, their spiritual book — and so it just makes sure it reinforces their faith and it helps them to teach alongside their parents what their faith is all about,” explained principal Starla Nistor.

RHS students study Arabic from preschool to Grade 9, while all students in school take Islamic and Quaranic studies throughout their elementary and secondary education.

COVID changes

RHS is also an associate school of Regina Public Schools. Its reopening has closely adhered to provincial and division return-to-class guidelines, but with a few changes.

One of those is RHS will require every student from kindergarten to Grade 12 to wear some form of personal protective equipment (PPE). This could include a mask or a protective visor.

“The board bought visors for every student and every staff member,” Nistor explained. “They also bought the lip-reading masks for teachers, which I felt was really important because … for children, oral language is such a large component of the work we do and a lot of children need to see teachers talking.

“We’re quite excited that we have that.”

The division will be supplying RHS, along with many other schools, with plenty of PPE.

“Obviously we’re so (grateful) we work with Regina Public,” Nistor said. “We will get all the supplies that every other school in Regina Public gets.”

While many parents have expressed concern over their children being able to wear a mask all day at school, Nistor said she does not share these concerns.

“One of the things I can always pride teachers on is they can teach children almost anything, so it’s just going to be part of the work that we have to do here,” she said. “We’ll be able to do it.

“Will it be challenging at first? Yes, but I have watched miraculously as our preschool teacher, our kindergarten, our Grade 1 all the way up teach students what we need them to do.”

Both schools say they plan to implement new misting disinfectant technology in their schools to ease the workloads of maintenance staff and prevent extending custodial hours. Teachers at RHS will also step in to assist with cleaning in their own classrooms when maintenance staff are not available.

As a faith-based school, RHS students in grades 1 through 12 would typically gather together to engage in school-wide daily prayers. This is another change students will have to navigate during the upcoming school year.

“It’s my favourite part of the day and unfortunately, we won’t be able to do the large group prayers that we have done in the past,” Nistor said. “I’m sad for the students and I’m sad for me because it’s such a wonderful time of the day.”

Prayers will still be done daily, but done within children’s classroom cohorts. Instead of using regular prayer mats, a disposable option will be introduced to reduce sanitization requirements.

Nistor said the biggest cohort at RHS is around 26 children.

“Just like every classroom, we always wished we had more space. But in saying that, teachers are removing furniture, they’re getting rid of things … they won’t be able to use, they’re spreading students out as best as possible,” Nistor said.

RHS students in preschool through Grade 12 will remain with their cohorts all day, every day.

No orientation will be done for RHS in accordance with the reopening plan set out by Regina Public Schools, but Nistor said online meetings are available for parents with any concerns before their children return to class.

During the school year, parents will need special permission to enter the school, as only staff and students will usually be allowed in the building to prevent potential COVID-19 transmission from an outside source.

Individual appointments are also being scheduled for RHS parents to pick up their children’s school uniforms.

At CAS, Cameron said classroom groups are called “bubbles” rather than cohorts. Groups of 12 students will be with a single teacher and a counsellor throughout the school year to limit their interactions with others.

There will be staggered times for breaks, including one at lunch, and meals during breakfast and lunch will be delivered to students by their teachers in their classrooms.

All students at the school will also be required to wear some form of PPE.

“We are insisting that they wear masks here,” Cameron said. “Our kids are transient, so I don’t want my staff sick and I don’t want the kids sick.”

Cloth masks are being made for each of the school’s 42 students.

“Each classroom will have their own colour of masks. That will be their bubble,” Cameron said.

But Cameron said school officials have an additional concern with CAS students when it comes to masks.

“Kids who have been abused, physically or however, sometimes feel that closeness of the mask as back to when they were abused, (like) a hand over their face,” the principal explained.

“We’re working really close with our kids and we know the ones we have to watch. We will be very aware of what we’re doing.”

Cameron said teachers at CAS have been well-trained in identifying students who are dealing with mental health problems and students about whom teachers have concerns can elect to wear a face shield instead of a mask.

Students will be given disposable masks each day before the end of the day for their bus or cab rides home.

It is also because of students’ backgrounds that Cameron is hoping for Plexiglas dividers. The school is currently preparing to use cardboard to help students socially distance.

“I don’t like the kids feeling isolated totally and it’s going to feel really different for them,” she said.

However, students will only be allowed one at a time in washrooms to prevent interaction with other students not in their bubbles.

“Girls are funny, they love to go in the bathroom and have discussions, so we’re going to have it that there’ll be one (person) in the bathroom at a time,” Cameron said. “We’ll have a total idea of who has interacted with each one of our students.”

As well, hallways and floors throughout the CAS building have been marked with arrows to help direct traffic.

“Everything is marked for them so they know how to get to their classroom and how they’ll all come out the front door,” Cameron said.

Alternative schools impacted “just like everybody else”

Nistor said COVID-19 impacted RHS “like everybody else” when it first hit Canada in March.

By March 20, just over a week after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, RHS had closed to in-class learning. One week later, online learning began and continued until the end of June.

Most students were involved in online learning, Nistor said.

“The impact was like all of our schools, I think,” Nistor said. “It was a major adjustment for families and for teachers and for students.

“All the online was an interesting transition but the Islamic instructors were able to take the information and the curriculums that they normally teach and do it like our Saskatchewan curriculum teachers and put it online.”

Classes didn’t end for CAS students when COVID hit. Cameron said teachers visited each student two times a week at their homes for socially distanced check-ins and deliveries of food and school materials.

“If the student was having any difficulty with schoolwork, (teachers) would borrow my SUV and they would put the paper in the back of the SUV,” Cameron explained. “The student would sit on the step at their home, (the teacher) would pull the SUV up and the teacher would do one-on-one schooling with the student.”

At graduation, which signals a student’s successful transition back to a regular school setting, Cameron said staff decorated her van and honked the horn as they visited each student to present them with their award and report card.

Positive feedback for alternative school planning

Both RHS and CAS say they have received overwhelmingly positive support from parents and students concerning their decisions to reopen and in response to their return-to-school plans.

Nistor said one parent from RHS who sells PPE has donated 5,000 masks and five boxes of hand sanitizer above and beyond the supplies the school is already set to receive from Regina Public Schools.

“They’re excited; parents are glad to be getting their children back,” Nistor said. “We want to ensure that parents and students and teachers and staff feel safe when they come into the building.”

Nistor said some parents may still decide to enroll their children with the public division for online learning, but expects most will stay.

“Our parents are amazing. Every principal says this but they’re a remarkable community and they hold teachers in the highest regard. They all believe that education is the most important,” she said.

As for teachers, both schools say educators will be back in the buildings Thursday to begin setting up classrooms and preparing for the upcoming semester.

One teacher has even painstakingly labelled every area of his classroom floor with arrows and spacing to help students social distance from one another.

“It sounds very regimented but (it’s a) smart move because kids get into their routine,” Nistor explained.

Both Nistor and Cameron are thrilled to see students and staff back in their schools once again.

“I’m excited and I’ve missed seeing teachers and staff. I’ve missed the children,” Nistor said. “I really believe that children need to be back in school and we all need to be back in school.”

Cameron was supposed to retire last year. Instead, her love for her students and staff at CAS has brought her back for another year as principal.

It’s all part of making kids feel as ready as possible for their new normal.

“People talk about the new normal and there is a new normal so it won’t be the same as it was 5 1/2 months ago but I really think that just getting back into a routine, having teachers in front of children, is essential,” Nistor said.