HUMBOLDT — The president of a group presenting school division administrators is expecting continued dialogue and engagement from the province as they move to centralize K-12 distance learning.
Kevin Garinger, the president of Saskatchewan League of Administrators, Directors and Superintendents, said there was apprehension at first when the government announced their decision to create a crown corporation to oversee online education. The first step of that plan was to buy Sun West School Division’s Distance Learning Centre.
“We didn’t know what this was going to look like, we knew this would require significant resources and we didn’t understand a lot of the pieces,” said Garinger, who is also the director of education for the Horizon School Division.
Garinger said when March 2020 hit and COVID shut down schools he, along with every school division in the country, quickly needed to change how education was taught and go to an online learning platform. During this time, school divisions prepared and planned as best they could as COVID had turned everything upside. In the following year many students and families chose to continue to learn from home and in the Horizon School Division, 280 students opted to do this, thus requiring an additional 14 full time teachers to run the learn from home entity. The Horizon director of education said funding from the federal and provincial governments was key to making this possible, adding that he believes Horizon provided the best online learning from home program that they could.
In 2023, this funding for K to Grade 9 was eliminated, essentially making it impossible for the division to continue to run the program alone.
Deputy Premier Donna Harpauer said that during COVID, the provincial government saw different abilities in each school division to provide online learning and that this caused inequities throughout the province. She said she believes that the new Distance Learning Centre will be a centre of excellence. The new online learning model will provide greater choice and more opportunities for all students in the province, while ensuring that all students accessing online learning are receiving a consistent high quality education experience. Harpauer said that COVID really put a microscope on many issues in the province.
Meetings with Assistant Deputy Minister and with all school divisions is crucial, Garinger said.
“It is our job to support and provide expertise so that the needs of our kids are being met.”
Accountability will be at its highest standard as possible, Garinger said.
“I still have concerns, but I am going to direct that energy and focus on providing the best outcome as possible, the most prized resource in the province, is our children. We are in this profession for one reason: that's to meet the needs of our kids. If this is how the government has decided to operate the distance learning in our sector – even though we felt we were doing a good job and our programs were running well – then it’s important to our students to deliver and provide as much as we can to ensure the success of our kids, even if it means this system is being delivered outside of our system.”
Meetings have been taking place with School Divisions and the Assistant Deputy Premier on what platforms worked best, best delivery methods, and taking the best practices of all school divisions with their online learning platforms. Garinger said there will be continued dialogue and engagement to pick and choose how to make this work the best.
The Distance Learning Centre, based in Kenaston, will be the head office and hub for online education in the province. As a part of the Sun West School Division, the centre has the highest enrolment of online learning students in the province and is well positioned to be the foundation of the new centralized model. Additional satellite locations to be created throughout the province. Teachers, regardless of where they live in Saskatchewan, will have employment opportunities to work for the online school in the coming months.
All Saskatchewan students will have access to the central online learning provider, the provincial government said in a media release. As with in-class learning in Saskatchewan, the new online school will provide free education for its students. Further communication will be available over the coming months for parents interested in enrolling their children in online learning. Student registration is also anticipated to open this winter and more information can be found on Saskatchewan.ca.
