KAMLOOPS — This week classes started up again for students in School District 73.
Receiving an education in the era of COVID-19 is a new challenge for many students, with classes moving mostly online.
The Chase family is adjusting to a new way of life, one that includes homeschooling.
“It’s a challenge for parents to take over the jobs of their teachers,” said Jamie Chase, who has been acting as his children’s Physical Education teacher. “Their teachers are there online as well, but it’s up to their parents to make sure that they’re sitting down when they’re meant to, and doing the work when they’re meant to.”
School District 73 has connected most of its students and teachers online. Superintendent of Schools Alison Sidow says those who don’t have access to computers or the internet have been provided with educational materials.
“Right now our teachers are so engaged in creative approaches to addressing student needs that we’re seeing some really innovative practices emerge; story time with individual students, teachers coming, it feels like right in the home with the child,” Sidow said.
Jamie’s wife, Dina, is an English and Photography teacher at Valleyview Secondary.
She is now instructing her students from her home computer.
“We’re trying to make these little YouTube videos and these little clips,” she said, “but you’re just like, ‘okay, I think I’ve reached 22 of my 28 kids in my English 10 class, yay, but what about those other six?’ We’re always worried about the rest, bringing everyone else in. There’s quite a few challenges, but when I’ve connected with them, I’m just so happy to see and read how they’re doing.”
Jamie and Dina’s children, Gabrielle and Aria, spend their mornings doing school work online.
“I thought it would just be like an extension of spring break, like maybe a week or two, but I didn’t expect online schooling at all,” Gabrielle said.
“I do prefer being in an actual classroom,” Aria said, “but my teacher set up a page where we could talk to our classmates, and lots of them say that they’re kind of scared of COVID-19.”
Sidow says it’s a priority of the school district’s to keep students calm during the pandemic.
“I would say the emotional well-being is trumping, at this time, any academic programming,” Sidow said. “Our teachers want to make sure, I’m hearing from them, that they’re really concerned that their children feel connected, that they feel safe.”
While schools are closed to the public, the school district has set up Pacific Way Elementary and Lloyd George Elementary as in-class sites for children of front-line healthcare workers.
The school district is also developing a plan for children of other essential service workers.
While the Chase family gets used to doing school at home, they’re also having to adjust some big plans they had for this year.
The family spends a lot of time on their sailboat and had saved up for five years for a year-long trip around the world.
Image Credit: Jamie ChaseThey were preparing to leave in May, but those plans are now postponed, possibly for a year.
“I was in Maryland actually on my last trip getting everything prepped on the boat to go, we were supposed to go the beginning of May,” Jamie Chase said. “While I was out there was while the world changed basically. We’re not 100 per cent sure what’s going to happen, but obviously our plans are not going to be what we thought they were.”
When Jamie returned to Canada he and his family had to quarantine for 14 days.
That time frame is nearly up and the family is feeling well.
Jamie says he has been impressed with the way Canada has been handling the COVID-19 situation.
“While I was in Maryland, I was listening to a lot of radio from back home here on the internet while I was working on the boat,” Jamie said. “So, I was mostly hearing news from here, and hearing all the steps that were being taken by our health ministers federally and provincially, all the isolation steps that were being taken. It sounded like things were changing very fast, but being taken very seriously and people were adhering to that, and I was looking around to what I was seeing where I was and that wasn’t the case at all.”
