Space, sanitizer, no show-and-tell: School divisions detail back-to-school plans

The coming school year is getting a little clearer for students and parents now as school divisions release their own back-to-school plans under the province’s Safe Schools Plan.

The province announced its final guidelines Tuesday, with many school divisions then releasing their own plans that had been approved by the ministry. Schools across Saskatchewan were closed in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The work isn’t over, though; now individual schools will have to tailor the divisions’ plans to their own buildings and needs.

“This is meant to sweep across our whole school division. Well, we’ve got an awful lot of schools — we’ve got 32 altogether. So now we can take this plan and gift the schools with the autonomy to make the plan fit in their school. Every facility is different, every staff is different (and) every community is different,” said Twylla West with the Regina Catholic School Division.

“Every teacher has a different teaching style and every student has a different learning style, so it’s going to be about taking this plan and dissecting it for what is needed in each classroom.”

West said not every classroom will need all the guidelines. She gave the example of guidelines to stop kids from congregating in washrooms, but that won’t need to be implemented in kindergarten classrooms because most of them have their own washrooms.

“While the rules are there and the plan is there to be followed at all of our schools, it’s going to take a little bit more time to break it down and have a plan that fits that school so that we can share that with parents, so that parents and guardians and students and our staff can really understand what’s going to happen when September rolls around,” explained West.

The province hasn’t mandated masks in classrooms and Regina Catholic Schools hasn’t either, but West said the division won’t tell the kids to take off masks if they choose to wear them. West said at the division they’re education experts, not disease experts.

“And so we are relying on those experts to share with us what we need to do in our schools, what will be best to protect our students and our staff,” said West.

According to West, there will be all kinds of communication with parents ahead and during the school year, so she encouraged parents to make sure their contact information and email addresses are updated.

The plans

Most of the division plans include things like spacing out desks in classes as much as possible, staggering recess and lunch times, and greatly enhancing cleaning and sanitizing procedures in schools.

They also include the stringent rules on food serving and preparation detailed in the province’s guidelines – things like no “family-style” meals and any food that’s handed out needs to be pre-packaged, and not prepared by students.

All of the divisions have their own details they’ve worked out.

Regina Catholic has prepared for three different scenarios: All kids back for in-class learning, all kids engaging in remote learning, and a hybrid model.

Its plan also talks about having kids eat in an assigned classroom for lunch and assigning specific washrooms for specific cohorts of students.

Regina Catholic also talked about having bagged lunches for kids instead of hot lunches for the first month of the year. And, when it comes to extracurriculars, the division said it will endeavour to follow the province’s guidelines on indoor and outdoor sports.

In Regina Public Schools, masks are not required, but a letter from the director of education, Greg Enion, said division officials are recommending all staff wear masks in situations where they can’t distance from others. The division also is asking parents to include face masks with their kids’ school supplies.

The public division also talks about figuring out ways to change entry and exit procedures as schools, creating protocols for students bringing things to and from school, and limiting shared materials.

The public division will sanitize buses between double routes, which it points out could space out dropoff times and cut into class time. It will also buy at least one water bottle fill station for each school to encourage kids to bring water bottles.

The plan also talks about additional sanitization protocols at the end of the day, specifically with a misting application.

The plan for Moose Jaw’s Prairie South School Division gets into a little more detail.

It talks about teachers scheduling hand-washing breaks at least five times a day, asking parents to reconsider show-and-tell and having parents send in pictures of an item instead.

The plan also suggests picking out a handful of books for each student for the week and putting them in a plastic bag. The student then hands them back at the end of the week.

It also tells teachers to do as much outside as possible, even into the winter months, and to consider using larger spaces like gyms and libraries for instruction as well.

Click here to see links to each school division’s plan.