The provincial government announced on Tuesday, June 9 that pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 students and staff will be returning to the classroom for the 2020-21 school year.
Schools have been closed in the province since March 20 due to an indefinite suspension set out by the province in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The school year might start as early as September 1.
“Reopening schools is a significant milestone for our province and an important step for families to get back to a new normal,” said Education Minister Gordon Wyant. “Thank you to the teachers and staff for the tremendous job they have done connecting with their students while in-class learning has been suspended.”
According to a media release sent out by the province, the Ministry of Education, with input from the Education Response Planning Team, will distribute public health guidelines in concert with the Chief Medical Health Officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab.
Guidelines will be available to school divisions as early as next week to ensure schools are safe for students, staff and caregivers.
The media release also said Shahab will continue providing advice and recommendations as the planning and implementation process takes place.
The media release also said while a return to the classroom in the fall is the scenario being planned for, there will be contingency plans in place in the event that there becomes an elevated transmission risk and in-class learning cannot resume as planned provincially or regionally.
Wyant later said in a press conference the contingency is dependent on what the state of affairs are in September. He added alternative entrances, staggered schedules and online learning will form parts of the plan.
“I think we’ve had some great experiences over the last number of months with online learning,” said Wyant. “We’ve learned a lot about alternate delivery of educational opportunities to kids. That can all form part of what those alternative protocols might be. The key here is to ensure the safety of kids in the classroom, but to make sure we provide an equitable learning opportunity for all the kids across the entire province.”
Shahab said they have been paying close attention to the school reopening in Australia, which has had a low level of COVID-19 transmission like Saskatchewan.
“We have been reassured by the fact that they have not seen large scale transmission in the school settings. Australia and Southeast Asia have been able to open more in the presence of low transmission, more or less in a regular fashion,” said Shahab. “If local epidemiology is not as low as it is now, there may be some additional considerations that may apply at a local or regional level. We will obviously continue to see how the school year continues in the Southern Hemisphere to learn from that as well.”
