After one of the most tumultuous school years in recent memory, kids and educators are looking forward to a relaxing, summer break.
Director of education with the Lambton Kent District School Board John Howitt says one positive takeaway has been the increased awareness for parents and families of how much work is being done behind the scenes.
“I think there’s also a better understanding of what is expected of students and the supports necessary for children to have positive outcomes,” Howitt says. “I think that’s going to be a great thing moving forward in that homeschool partnership that clearly has a positive impact on student learning.”
Howitt’s counterpart at the English Catholic board, Deb Crawford says this past year has been a huge learning experience, and shown how resilient staff, students, and families can be.
“I think as disappointed as we are that we didn’t end up coming back to school, I think there’s a sense of optimism that we will be coming back in September, we will be face-to-face for the most part, and coming out of this pandemic with hope and certainly evidence of the resilience of the parents and the students and the staff at our school board.”
And through all of the challenges, repeatedly switching from in-person to online, and trying to stay connected, officials say it’s been an eye-opening school year.
“I mean, teachers had to learn an awful lot and our support staff had ot learn a lot,” Crawford says. “We had to put a lot of technology out there to address the needs in our communities, and we did have to deal with a lot of problems there around access to technology and reliable internet.”
However, Crawford believes the needs of more vulnerable populations were still met and mental health and relationship supports were still provided, regardless of whether students were in the classroom or online.
Back at the LKDSB, Howitt says as much as teachers and students have had to pivot time and time again, respect needs to be paid to families who’ve also made incredible sacrifices.
“There were a lot of families that lost jobs and lost income because of remote learning periods when adults had to be home, that’s caused significant strife in the community. The sacrifices those families made need to be recognized,” Howitt says. “I think our students learned an incredible life skill that you can’t always control what’s going to happen and that life can deal you unexpected things, and we are resilient enough to come out.”
