School district urges parents to take it easy as students start distance learning

The Waterloo Region District School Board is trying to ease the stress facing families as they prepare for weeks or even months of school closures and distance learning. 

"Take it slowly," advises school board spokesperson Andrew Sloan. "We realize you have your own jobs, your own lives and this will be here next week and the week after."

The board has unveiled its new WRDSB@Home portal, connecting families and students with mental health resources, tips for learning at home and learning materials. It's a local extension of the province's Learn at Home program. 

For elementary grades, there are resources in math, french immersion, literacy, healthy active living and well-being with short, age and curriculum-appropriate exercises. 

It may look sparse right now but that will change, said Sloan. 

"As we started [the week of March 23] we didn't know if schools would come back early April. We now know that's not the case. So the senior team started meeting as soon as we could and started putting out content," explained Sloan. 

Lessons started going up on March 26. 

"It will continue to grow, and we ask students and parents to bear with us as we try to get as much information out as we can," said Sloan.

Half hour of instruction per grade

Kitchener's Emily Beilby has homeschooled four of her own kids and tutored several more. She has a piece of advice for parents and guardians: use the resources that are available to you.

"Don't try and re-invent the wheel and come up with your own resources and your plans. Don't put that burden on yourself. Someone's handing you something ready-designed. Just use it!"

She also agrees with Sloan about managing expectations, saying there's no need to try and reproduce a normal school day at home because these are not normal times. 

"You have resources and one on one time with your kid that a classroom teacher — even with a classroom of 20 — just doesn't have. And you don't need to spend six hours a day educating your kid," said Beilby.

The homeschooling rule of thumb, she says, is half an hour per grade level.

"You can get all the book learning for Grade 4 done in two hours a day," said Beilby. "That's generally accepted in the [homeschooling] community."

She says don't indulge in parenting guilt because the current situation is uncharted territory even for homeschoolers. Her kids' science classes, dance classes and other social activities are all cancelled. So, Beilby says, it's okay if the kids have a bit more screen time than usual; hers are normally allowed one movie a week — right now, she's trying to keep it down to one a day.

Teachers calling families

Parents can expect to hear from teachers in the coming days if they haven't already. Educators started calling home last week, checking in with students and their families to find out about their educational and technical needs.

The board knows there are problems with access to technology, said Sloan, but he said that problem isn't unique to students locally.

"All 73 boards are dealing with this, so there's a strength in numbers here," but welcomed parents with questions to get in touch with the board at [email protected]. 

The Waterloo Catholic District School board said access to technology for their students was also a "primary concern."

Board spokesman John Shewchuk said it is waiting to hear more details from the Ministry of Education on how long schools will be closed so the board can sort out how learning at home will work for its students. 

In the meantime, the board launched #STEAMDays last week to help its students stay engaged, with each day of the week dedicated to exploring science, technology engineering art or math.