Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

RETURN TO SCHOOL

Kamloops schools making preparations to welcome students back on June 1st

May 20, 2020 | 11:41 AM

KAMLOOPS — Principal Blake Buemann and the teachers at South Sahali Secondary School are working hard to ensure they’re ready to receive students back in building as of June 1st.

“We’ve had our custodians in all week working with us, removing extra furniture from the classrooms so that we can space all the desks,” Buemann explained.

That furniture has been set in some of the hallways to help create directional pathways for students to follow. Even with all the extra precautions schools are taking, the head of the Kamloops-Thompson Teachers Association knows kids can be agents of chaos.

“There are some concerns about social distancing,” Laurel Macpherson told CFJC Today. “As we know, Kindergarten to Grade Five, their very social creatures.”

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SD73 has taken that assumption into account in how they’ve set up classrooms to welcome students back into schools.

“What you’re going to see in the classroom is desks spread apart,” Buemann says. “We’re going to have two groups of students coming, so we’ll have a Group A and a Group B.”

Each classroom also has sinks, where kids can wash their hands before settling in to learn. As far as PPE goes, teachers will have to decide whether they want to equip themselves with a mask.

“Teachers will be permitted to wear masks,” Macpherson says. “If a teacher feels like they want [PPE], it will be on a case-by-case basis.”

Along with the additional space and changes in traffic patterns through hallways, Principal Buemann expects students to adapt well to the new way of doing things.

“These changes will also serve as reminders that things aren’t quite like they were before spring break.”