Colour-coded cohorts combat coronavirus circulation at Winnipeg school By: Maggie Macintosh Posted: 7:10 PM CDT Friday, Sep. 11, 2020

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This article was published 10/09/2020 (1568 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The purple-clad children are on the swing set. The green kids are on the monkey bars. Blue is on the blacktop.

An aerial shot of recess at Linden Meadows School mimics a painter’s fresh palette.

With school staff on the lookout, the blobs of colour are to remain unmixed.

Introducing, colour-coded cohorts — one way elementary schools are getting creative in welcoming students back amidst the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Using T-shirts, pinnies and face masks, schools are assigning groups a specific hue to both supervise physical distancing and create a sense of community between peers returning to the classroom after a six-month hiatus.

“The teachers are really running with this. They’re coming up with a cohort sign and a cohort slogan, and they’re really working with it to create an identity within the cohort,” said Teresa Rogers, principal of the K-8 school in southwest Winnipeg.

Only days into the new school year, the green-clad Grade 3/4 class has already picked a chameleon to be their cohort mascot. Their reasoning? “Chameleons turn green in order to keep themselves safe.”

Similarly, teacher Jayanna Barnes said the light-blue Grade 1/2 chickadees got their name from the “tiny but tough” birds that weather Manitoba temperatures year-round.

While the province’s back-to-school plan encourages students to remain six feet apart from one another whenever possible, it recognizes strict physical distancing isn’t always practical. That’s where cohorting comes in; a new pandemic buzzword — in good company with “quarantine,” “asymptomatic” and “handwashing” — that refers to categorizing students into groups in which they can intermingle.

The number of students in a cohort is capped at 75, in order to limit potential exposure to COVID-19 and simplify contract tracing should a student or teacher test positive for the virus. The groups can consist of classes, grades or wings in a building.

At Linden Meadows, its approximately 460 students have been sorted into 10 cohorts, ranging from the white-wearing kindergarten classes to pink Grade 4/5s to orange Grade 7s.

In recognition of parent concerns about laundry and that students want to express themselves through their wardrobes, the school isn’t strictly enforcing the new dress code. Rogers said Linden Meadows, which is considering buying T-shirts in bulk, is simply encouraging students to bring a shirt to wear during recess.

The coloured groups rotate between designated zones — the field, four-square area and play structure, among others — during outdoor breaks throughout the week.

“You strive to be ultra-vigilant,” vice-principal Frank MacLean said while supervising students Friday, with a map of recess schedules and playground zones in hand.

Boasting a six-foot-wingspan, MacLean has helped teach the school’s youngest learners to use their “eagle wingspan” this week to maintain their distance from one another. He said Friday the “monster walk,” a Frankenstein-like pose that requires students to stretch their arms out in front of them as they move in a line, has also proven successful in promoting new public health measures.

Faced with restrictions on singing, hugging and high-fiving, and the reality herding students as young as five while maintaining physical distancing, elementary school teachers are faced with no easy task this year.

Barnes has removed the collaborative carpet spaces from her classroom, created individualized math and writing kits, and assigned two students each to circular group tables. The Grade 1/2 teacher takes it in stride: “Even though there are changes, there’s beautiful growth happening, and I think that’s a good thing to remember.”

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie

Maggie Macintosh
Reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Winnipeg Free Press. Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

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