School officials hope for patience as students, parents and the education system prepares to return to classes across New Brunswick with COVID 19 still active. Provincial officials are using twice weekly live streamed updates to explain the plans to keep students and staff safe, while Superintendent Zoe Watson encourages parents to regularly check the Anglophone South School District website to see how it will roll out in Charlotte County.
      All students from Kindergarten to Grade 8 who are not "medically vulnerable" will attend school full time, but many high school students will attend school every other day in a "blended" system of at home and in school learning. There will be individual plans for students unable to come to school, but they will be engaged in full time learning even at home. Each school will have its own operational plan completed by early September.
      The start of classes will be staggered between Tuesday, September 8, and Friday, September 11, and bus schedules might change. Parents can use the "BusPlanner" link on the district website to check the schedule.
      Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Dominic Cardy, deputy ministers George Daley and Marcel Lavoie and the province's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell have explained some changes that apply province wide. Students will fill buses from back to front to avoid passing each other and will sit in the same place every day to make contact tracing easier. Kindergarten to Grade 5 students will sit one to a seat. Students in grades 6 12 can sit two to a seat if they wear masks - or without masks if they are in the same family bubble.
      Students from Kindergarten to Grade 2 will be grouped in classes of approximately 15 students, while grades 3 to 5 classes "will be reduced wherever possible." The district added 75 homerooms in elementary schools to accommodate smaller classes. Elementary school classes will serve as "social bubbles." Classmates can interact with each other but will keep their distance from students in other classes. Shared items, such as computers, will be cleaned after each use. Things that cannot be cleaned -- playdough for example -- will not be shared. Drinking fountains will be shut off and replaced by filling stations for water bottles.
      According to the district website, grades 6 8 students will attend classes every day and may interact with others in their class bubbles. Grades 9 12 students will attend school "on a rotational basis" at least every other day but will take part in learning activities even on days at home. High school students must keep social distance in class and common areas, and grades 6 12 will be asked to wear masks when unable to keep social distance. Grades 9 12 students will be expected to bring their own electronic devices.
      Russell, Daley and Lavoie devoted one entire live streamed update to explain how to conduct school athletics without spreading COVID 19, including strict protocols for sanitizing changing rooms. They promised to release rules for music programs, particularly school choirs and singing groups.
      Russell warned people on August 20 to not let down their guards on COVID 19. "Remember that the virus is not tired, and we must treat it with respect," she said. More staff and students will get tested for COVID 19, but Russell cautions that normally only one test in a thousand will come back positive. "That means we have to become very comfortable with the fact that people are going to get tested," she said.
      She says that COVID 19 might well show up in New Brunswick schools, but the province must take this risk for the mental health and social development of young people who have not gone to school since April.