In a conference call with reporters Wednesday morning, NDP opposition education critic Carla Beck said she was happy to see classes resume in the fall, but still had other concerns.
Beck said it was important to get assurances from the province and in the guidelines that “when students go back that we are able to provide them with the direction, as well as the resources in the classroom, to ensure that safe re-introduction to students to in-person classes.”
She noted that before the pandemic hit classrooms across the province were “increasingly crowded and complex” and that school boards were dealing with declining funding year to year.
Beck pointed to three students to a seat on a school bus as one example, and she also noted 70 schools in the province were at over 120 percent capacity.
Beck expressed “cautious optimism” but also “very real and big questions that need to be answered” about what the guidelines will look like, and that “they will be providing the resources to enact the guidelines.”
She noted school divisions “do not have any room in their budgets to incur additional costs,” and that teachers and staff in schools already had “way too much on their plate and we can’t be tasking them with a bunch of additional duties without resources.”
Her remarks were in response to the announcement Tuesday from education minister Gord Wyant that in-school classes would resume in the fall, after being suspended in March due to COVID-19.
