We did this crazy thing again—last Thursday, we sent Mark to school. Yes, in-person school, not sit-in-front-of-computer school. You’ve read it right, we dropped out our not-eligible-for-vaccination child to a semi-public place where he’s going to spend 6.5 hours a day indoors with other unvaccinated children.
The three of us couldn’t wait for in-person school to finally resume. Ontario leads the country in COVID-19 school closures—primary and secondary schools were closed longer than any other province in Canada, 25 weeks since March 14, 2020, if my math is right.
Mark is starting Grade 4. I hope he actually gets to learn something this year—“remote learning” was a disaster and stay-at-home orders were a boring, miserable experience. “The good part was that I didn’t have to wear a mask at home,” Mark says. “The bad part was… everything else.”
Back-to-school time during an ongoing pandemic involves dozens of last-minute emails from teachers, from the school, from the school board and from the provincial government, none of them relevant to education or the curriculum. Masks, drop off and pick up procedures, ventilation, cohorts, mental health support, designated entrance and social distancing dots are being discussed at length. Nobody wants to take risks, nobody wants to be blamed but a certain level of risk can’t be avoided.
I mean, it can’t be worst than last year when we had no vaccines, right?
But, but… variants!
Ah, you got me.
I’d better stay away from social media and news for a little while—too many people high on outrage. Canada is reopening borders for the first time since March 2020? Outrageous! Never mind that the fine print is “vaccinated travellers only, pre-departure PCR test required”, which kind of mitigates risks. Schools reopening? Outrageous! Don’t come and complain when a new lockdown triggered by your damn kids is announced! Mask mandates? Outrageous! Vaccine mandates? Outrageous!
Bottom line is, there’s no quick fix, no perfect solution. And even when part of the solution exists—unlike other places in the world, North America and Europe are awashed with vaccines—some people just don’t accept it.
At 8:20 a.m., I joined the mosh pit, i.e. parents gathered behind the fence. Mark was directed to the courtyard at the back and I stood there, chatting with other parents.
“I hope schools stay open until March Break next year,” a mom said.
“Or at least Christmas. Yeah, let’s make it to Christmas,” another added.
“Vaccination rate in Ottawa is pretty high,” I chimed in. “It should help protect kids.”
“Oh, because you think vaccines help?”
Shit. Another one. I keep on bumping into unvaccinated people. This is relatively new to me because in France, all my relatives, friends and acquaintances got vaccinated as soon as possible. But in Canada I discovered I had a few unvaccinated friends and neighbours, plus random people who make it clear that they aren’t vaccinated.
Mark seemed happy when we picked him up at 3:00 p.m. Most of his friends are in his class. “And we don’t have Plexiglas shields anymore!”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah… maybe it’s because there are too many desks in the classroom. I mean, we’re 30 kids.”
Right.
Should be a fun year.
To be honest, I don’t THINK vaccines help.
Numbers accross the world led me to KNOW vaccines help.
Trust me, this is a level of subtlety this conversation wasn’t going to reach 😆
Happy return to school! What a fun lunch note.
Thank you! I… did my best 😆
My kids (both in high school) haven’t returned to school, but some schools are open now in big cities
Do you know when schools should reopen? How long have they been closed for now?
Bonne rentrée Mark ! 🙂
I sure hope the vaccine will help kids. I only have a few unvaccinated people in my life, even my minor nieces and nephews chose to be vaccinated which is a great thing! I’m not very optimistic regarding primary schools staying opened, though 🙁
I really don’t know what’s the school year will be like for kids under 12. And there’s no plan B… I mean, we can’t just keep him at home and “wait it out”! Online learning doesn’t work with this age group as well.
No, that’s for sure… We can only wait and see, and hope for the best
aww how is Mark doing at school so far ? Daniel went back to in-person school too. It was needed. So far, going well. Fingers crossed !
So far so good! I’m glad to hear Daniel is back at school, the whole online school was such a mess (even though I completely understand while you picked this option considering the health situation!)
We did our best with it. It did affect our mental health, but we got through it somehow.
I hope we can all bounce back. Weird times, eh…