Back-To-School Plan A ‘Good Balance’: Cardy

New Brunswick’s education minister is defending his government’s back-to-school plan as a good compromise.

Students will see many changes in September, including smaller classes for some and blended learning for others.

During Friday’s announcement, Dominic Cardy was asked why the province is not fully reopening schools like other jurisdictions.

“We have to be ready for a return of COVID-19 and we want as much as possible to make sure that our school system can stay open. We want to make sure as well that we address any anxiety that parents and teachers and students have about a return to school,” he said.

Cardy said he feels New Brunswick’s plan is a “good balance” between a full return to class and straight online learning.

Students in kindergarten to Grade 8 will be grouped by class and stay within their grouping throughout the day.

Kindergarten to Grade 5 students will see reduced class sizes, with the aim being around 15 students per class. Grades 6 to 8 will have regular class sizes and students will be spread out in the classroom.

“At the [Grade] 6 to 8 level, we know the students are older, they will better understand the components of personal hygiene etiquette and doing things to protect themselves, so that’s why we were able to go with the large class size,” said George Daley, the deputy education minister.

High school students will not be grouped together. Instead, they will be taught using “blended learning” methods, which means they may spend some of their days learning from home.

Daley said grouping high school students would have “completely changed the entire system.”

“You would have had one group of students and you would have completely changed the access to courses and the variety of options that they would have had before them,” he said

Smaller class sizes and physical distancing will be the name of the game when students go back to school in September.

But how will that work at schools which are already dealing with overcapacity issues?

“We may have to look at having kids in different schools than they were in the last school year, but we’ll adress that in a case-by-case basis, as much as possible looking to minimize disruption for students and teachers,” said Cardy.

There may also be changes to transportation to accommodate physical distancing. Cardy said more details will be released as we get closer to September.