The November COVID-19 exposure events experienced at five schools in the Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools system have been declared over.
Dover Bay Secondary, John Barsby Secondary, Ladysmith Secondary, Randerson Ridge Elementary and Frank J Ney Elementary all had multiple exposures in early and mid-November, but Island Health said they had all passed 14-day periods without any exposures. Since then, as of Dec. 7, new exposures have been announced at Wellington Secondary (Dec. 3 and 4) and once more at Randerson Ridge (Dec. 2-4).
At the Dec. 2 education committee meeting, assistant superintendent Laura Tait said schools experienced dramatic attendance shifts during the exposure periods as many families appeared to have chosen to keep their kids home out of an abundance of caution. Schools without exposures also experienced a drop in attendance during the period but have since levelled off.
Online distributed learning (DL) continues to be in high demand throughout the district. Enrolment in IslandConnectED (ICE) remains closed to new registration for Kindergarten to Grade 9, but is open for Grades 10-12 to enrol in single courses. Families can still join the waitlist. As of Dec. 3, full-time enrolment in ICE was at 927 Kindergarten to Grade 9 students and 238 Grades 10-12 students. In the last couple weeks, the district has hired six new full-time equivalent teachers for the distributed learning program. The total number of teachers for the program was not available as of press time.
Assistant superintendent Don Balcombe said they are “in a bit of a holding pattern” with some families who prefer the bricks and mortar schooling option for their children, but have switched them to distance learning anyways.
“It’s not that they want to send their kids to DL for the rest of the school year.” Balcombe said some families know it’s not a good fit for their children’s learning or their family situations but are, as he put it, “walking away from bricks and mortar due to COVID” rather than “walking to DL.”
Author: Rachelle Stein-Wotten, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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