Most parent-teacher interviews remain virtual as school boards maintain COVID-19 caution

Restaurants are open in all corners of the country, but people can visit bars and sports venues. But when it comes to schools, Halifax’s parent, Leah Rimmer, still can’t get through the campus.

For the second year in a row, many school boards require parent-teacher conferences to be held correctly – safety measures, according to administrators, but it can be confusing for some parents who ask why the choice is in person or online. Not available if you have been vaccinated on Covide-19.

“Why can’t I just show my vaccination passport? I wear a mask, socially I stay away from the teacher, ”said Rimmer, a mother of four. “What’s the real issue here?”

Parent-teacher conferences usually take place outside of teaching hours throughout Canada. In any other year, the meetings allow parents to enter the classroom to talk to the teachers, and it is difficult to walk through the school corridors and see the artwork on the walls – on the phone or on the computer screen. For parents with small children, this may be the first time in the school building.

But school board officials say they are taking extra precautions, especially as they do not want to expose their staff to the virus.

Students in Ontario do not need a CV-19 vaccine to attend school.

Manitoba spends up to $ 1 million to encourage covad-19 vaccines to close schools

Winnipeg School Division spokeswoman Radian Carter said virtual conferences are “taking extra care to ensure the safety of schools and the wider school community.” The classroom is a parent-teacher conference for students and is scheduled for November 19 this year.

Ms Carter said the Manitoba government had recently allowed a conference to be held in person, but had left the choice of classrooms.

“This requires each participant to provide immunizations in person, so we have chosen to continue the virtual conferences for the time being,” she said, adding that some physical meetings will be allowed for special needs students. .

Sue Dunlop, co-director of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, west of Toronto, said the local public health department had advised the board about restricting visitors to the school. Other school boards in Ontario have also opted for parent-teacher interviews. (As part of their recent aggravated action, primary school teachers at the Toronto Catholic School Board will not participate in the parent-teacher interview scheduled for next week.)

Ms. Danlop said families and educators have become accustomed to the online environment over the past year. “I can talk to someone through the screen. When you lose that person in person, you can still have a very clear and honest and supportive conversation.”

At Halifax, Ms. Rimmer said her eldest son began growing up a junior last year and did not have the opportunity to meet with her teachers or visit their classrooms. She longs for the energy that comes from sitting down with the teachers for a personal discussion. “I don’t think this is the right thing to do,” she says, adding that she would like families to have a choice.

Jenna Makuvin, a spokeswoman for Nova Scotia Education Department, said schools had moved to a virtual conference to limit the spread of the virus, but comments from parents indicated that many families were attending online meetings. The answer, she said, was that parents chose the choice because it was better suited to their program.

In Suri, BC, Jordan Tynney, the school’s superintendent of schools, said many schools in his state have given families a choice between in-person and virtual interviews. “We said we made both available for access reasons,” he said, adding that some parents did not want to travel for 10 minutes.

According to Mr. Tini, being in school can sometimes be uncomfortable for some parents, especially Indigenous people and black families. In those cases, he said, it was important for the board to accommodate families so that they could meet with teachers.

Karen Brown, president of the Ontario Primary Teachers Federation, said holding a virtual parent-teacher conference this month is a safe step because communities have different levels of vulnerability to CV-19. However, school boards and governments should consider testing or vaccinating passports for families to return to school this school year.

“The school is a very rich area, and it can’t be transferred online.”

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