The New Westminster school district is ready to shift back into a hybrid system of remote and in-class learning – but it’s not anticipating a need to do so.
At the final school board meeting of the year Dec. 15, superintendent Karim Hachlaf outlined the district’s plans should the province shift back into Stage 3 of the B.C. education restart plan.
Stage 3 would see students learning in class some of the time and remotely the rest of the time, with the percentage of each varying by grade level.
Hachlaf acknowledged there has been “lots of conversation” around the idea of moving back into a hybrid learning format amidst the surging COVID-19 numbers around the province, but he said there are no plans to do so at this point.
“This is not to alarm the community. I’m not expecting us to go backwards in the new year,” he said.
Rather, Hachlaf said, he just wants to assure community members the district is ready for that shift.
He said the district’s plans for Stage 3 have taken into account a number of considerations, including the continuity of learning, family needs and staff workloads.
The district has two options ready for elementary schools. Both would see kindergarten to Grade 2 students attending Mondays and Thursdays, while grades 3 to 5 would attend Tuesdays and Fridays. Wednesdays would be either a split day – with younger students in the morning and older grades in the afternoon – or a full remote learning day for all students, depending on whether the district went with a 50% attendance plan or 40% attendance.
There are also a number of options for middle schools, with the full Stage 3 plan calling for a 20% return to class. Under that plan, students would attend school one day a week and learn remotely the other four days. The district also has plans that could see middle school attendance reduced to 40% or 50%, with students broken out by division and attending on certain days of the week.
At New Westminster Secondary School, students would also attend one day a week, with four days of remote learning.
Hachlaf noted the district’s plans have taken into account input from administrators, staff and families. For example, he noted, during the optional hybrid learning offered by the district in the spring, students returned for part-time in-class instruction on a half-day schedule five days a week. But, having heard from parents that half-days posed challenges for work and child-care schedules, the district’s plans for Stage 3 now call for full, alternating days instead.
Hachlaf stressed he’s not anticipating any move to Stage 3 in the immediate future but said the district is “quite prepared to do that without delay” when and if it’s needed.
