When the newly appointed minister of education Todd Smith quit on August 16, less than three months into the job and less than three weeks before kids were set to head back to class, I had an uneasy feeling that this school year would be a write-off before it had even begun.
If you’re a parent or guardian with school-age children, the disruption to learning that happened when the pandemic hit isn’t something that happened four years ago — it’s something that is still taking place.
Even if policymakers have moved on and are pretending that everything is back to normal, education in public schools is in crisis.
You hear it from education workers, school boards, those in special education. You can see it reflected in the list of children with autism, which has now grown to 70,000. Students continue to suffer, and we will all feel the impacts of that at some point or another.
While I am a journalist and an employee of TVO, which receives funding from the Ministry of Education, I am also a parent of two children in the public-school system.
It’s hard to believe that my 13-year-old son will soon start high school. Four years ago, when the pandemic hit, he was in the middle of Grade 4.
This past summer, my son attended summer school to address his learning loss. While his teacher acknowledged that he was at a Grade 6 reading level (as are many in his cohort, she said), there was no option to hold him back a year. I’ve written about why the province should acknowledge pandemic learning loss and give parents the option to hold their children back. Pretending that children know enough to move forward when they don’t is a recipe for failure.
For me, as for many parents and guardians, the excitement of back to school has been replaced with anxiety and uncertainty about what this school year will bring — and whether the government has the right priorities.
Will the class size be too big, as it was the year before? Will the classroom have an education assistant, or will it be short-staffed again? Will the classes have to be restructured in the late fall because there was a teacher shortage or because the class sizes weren’t large enough? Will the school year once again feature a carousel of supply teachers?
The government has announced that it will install surveillance systems costing tens of millions to weed out vaping in schools. Why isn’t it also more clearly prioritizing the above concerns? Why is vaping the focus?
When it comes to screens, it’s the Ontario government that championed online learning even before the pandemic hit. It might have made sense and been necessary when schools were closed, but students are still learning on computers during the day when they’re in the classroom — meaning they’re exposed to hours and hours of screen time. And yet it’s going after student cellphone use? Smartphones are, after all, minicomputers.
And if the government is worried about student screen time, it should ensure that internet safety is a central part of the curriculum. As many parents have told me, it’s now the norm for our kids to be exposed to pornography. They’ve been given the keys to the whole world via the internet and online learning, yet we haven’t made teaching them how to use it or how to stay safe a top priority. Where is that concern?
Simcoe North MPP Jill Dunlop has now succeeded Todd Smith as minister of education.
In an interview with OrilliaMatters, she said the appointment was “absolutely thrilling.”
She says she’s since spoken with the presidents of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.
“For me, stability is key for parents and for students and also looking forward to the child-care piece as well,” she told OrilliaMatters. “I've been meeting with municipal leaders all day, and there's a lot of opportunities for new schools and expanded child-care centres as well.”
Here’s to new beginnings and to hopefully addressing what’s not working. Our children deserve it and, as the government itself might say, the economic future of this province relies on an educated workforce. Now is as good a time as any to hit reset.
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