Making the most of a strange school year

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/09/2020 (2070 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

No more routine classes. No more school sports or pep rallies. No more hanging out with friends in the cafeteria, hallways or between courses.

Kristel Bumanglag and Abigail Bobiles have every reason to sulk as they enter their senior year without many of the constants they have come to expect with the start of a new school year.

Instead, the duo has decided to make the most of the new public health protocols.

“You’ve got to match the mask — that’s a thing now,” said Bumanglag, after the final bell rang at Sisler High School Wednesday.

The 16-year-old said she has bought a number of neutral-coloured face masks to sport when she attends class, twice every cycle, this fall. For her first day, she picked a light brown material face covering to wear with her brown leather jacket and white crop top.

Bobiles, who called her first day back “a success,” wore a ribbed black mask to go with her plain black backpack and matching tank top.

The friends are among the tens of thousands of students who are starting the 2020-21 school year in Manitoba this week — six months after COVID-19 prompted the province to cancel in-person classes.

While it’s too soon to get an accurate grasp of the turnout, given schools are required to report official enrolment statistics at the end of the month, the Winnipeg School Division recorded fewer than 20 student absences in many of its schools on Sept. 8.

“Our rate of absenteeism among students was lower than expected,” said Radean Carter, a senior information officer at the division, which includes 79 schools and nearly 33,000 students.

Another first-day-of-school trend in the division: many younger students in grades 1 through 3 wore face coverings voluntarily. There were also “a lot of very happy kids,” said Carter, adding students were simply happy to reconnect with their friends after the holidays.

High-schoolers are trickling into class for the first time throughout the week; many of them will attend only two days of instruction per cycle so their classes can be kept small for the time being.

Meghan Rauch, a teacher at Garden City Collegiate, welcomed 100 per cent of her “Learning Group A” students back Wednesday to go over protocols, schedules and new rules.

“One thing I notice with kids wearing masks in class is I can’t read their expressions,” Rauch said, adding that teaching masked students will be one of the key challenges she faces this year, in addition to navigating a hybrid school-day.

Rauch’s classroom occupancy will not exceed 15 students at a time. Students at the Winnipeg school are to attend full days of in-person instruction every other day; when they’re not in school, they are expected to sign in online and complete independent tasks at home.

“I think the hybrid is great for high school kids, especially 11s and 12s. They’re developing a lot of life skills that they wouldn’t otherwise: they’ll have to learn how to organize their space, organize their time, how to stay on top of things on their own,” said Rauch, who teaches history and French.

She added a hybrid learning model will prepare students for life after school in a mid-pandemic work-from-home world and post-secondary, should they choose to pursue studies after they graduate.

Bumanglag shared those sentiments Wednesday.

If the spring learning disruptions taught her anything, she said it’s that, “you need to do well in time management.” (As well, the Sisler senior said she’s learned that spending too much time online gives her headaches.)

“We’ll try to make the most of it,” she said, about 2020-21. “It is what it is.”

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie