Ontario's schools will remain closed for the remainder of the school year.
Premier Doug Ford announced this afternoon that after consulting with healthcare officials, it would not be safe to physically reopen schools in the province during the month of June.
Director of Education at the District School Board of Niagara, Warren Hoshizaki tells CKTB he wasn't surprised by the announcement saying they were prepared for various outcomes.
He says he understands there is an element of disappointment in today's announcement. He says students miss their classmates and teachers.
He says overall online learning has been a success.
Hoshizaki says parents have a new appreciation of how teachers try to meet the unique needs of 20-30 students, and teachers have a new appreciation of how tough it is for parents to educate children at home.
The school board issued this statement:
Today, Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education, announced that publicly-funded schools in Ontario
would remain closed for the rest of the school year.
The decision to close schools until the end of June was important for maintaining student, staff, and
community health and safety; we support the Ontario government’s decision.
Although school buildings will remain closed, there is still lots of learning to be done in the coming
weeks. Our schools and teachers will continue to engage students with online education from their
teacher(s), and through the DSBN Learn From Home website. Our students have been resilient in
dealing with the change from classroom to virtual learning, and our parent community have
supported their children’s efforts; we sincerely appreciate the work of our parent community.
This summer, learning will continue for DSBN students with our summer learning program. This
program will feature a broad range of subjects for all grades if they choose to enhance their learning
during the summer. It will feature a much larger number and variety of credits than would typically
be offered.
While COVID-19 has shuttered schools for the remainder of the year, we will continue to work
together to ensure that the 2019/2020 school year successfully concludes for all students and staff.