EAST CENTRAL — The Horizon School Division is making sure that all students that wish to continue learning can do so, even if they don’t have access to the internet at home.
“We recognize that there's still some families who are having some challenges around the connectivity component,” said Kevin Garinger, the division's director of education.
That’s why the division has rolled out around 700 of its Chromebooks to students.
“We are also in the process of planning to roll out upwards of 100 cell phones that will ultimately have hotspot capability so that families are able to use hotspots to engage or to connect to the internet,” Garinger said.
The division is working with Saskatoon Public Schools and Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools, as well as SaskTel, to make the distribution of technology possible.
“We're excited about being able to support our families through an electronic manner, those who are struggling with internet connectivity,” the director of education said.
“We're pretty grateful that we have that opportunity to be able to try and support this, this supplemental learning now and into the near future, until this temporary disturbance is over.”
Garinger said that around five-sixths of the division's 6,343 students are continuing with supplemental learning. The remaining 1,100 or so are either not participating or have decided not to do all of their courses online.
The division’s teachers are using software like Google Classroom, Google Meet and Zoom to continue teaching students.
Garinger said teachers are using documents, videos and hyperlinks to ensure that all learning styles, whether it be visual, auditory or something else, are accommodated.
