Not one community in the Hanover School Division was able to gather the number of signatures necessary for them to have religious opening exercises in their schools this coming year before the established deadline. They will not, however, be suffering the penalty.

Ordinarily, every school in the division is required to submit a petition of 60 parent signatures in favor of the morning devotionals. The typical submission deadline for that petition is April 30th. Though the school board has made a few exceptions in the past, during a normal year this deadline would be regarded as a hard cutoff. But, as Chair Rick Peters indicates, this year is far from normal.

“Given the circumstances, with COVID-19, we felt it was important that we extend that deadline,” he explains. “With the [provincial] physical distancing recommendations, we knew the gathering of signatures was going to be difficult.”

Peters says the board has pushed back the April 30th deadline to June 19th. What form the petitions take will be up to each individual community. Recognizing some of the ongoing challenges posed by the virus, Peters says the division is working on a way to accept digital petitions alongside physical documents. He reminds potential petitioners that all information must be complete and accurate, regardless of the medium they choose to use.