The recent announcement of online learning to start the new year has many parents expressing concern.

Tara Rempel and her husband work outside the home. Their two teenage children attend school in Winnipeg, grades 10 and 12. The recent announcement of all Manitoba schools moving to online learning for the first week back to school means the Rempel kids will be at home alone while doing their online learning, and many families in the province are in the same situation. 

"My thoughts as I listened to the announcement were, 'How many people are crying right now?' I wanted to cry," says Rempel. "We'd been praying as a family that we wouldn't have to go back to remote learning. When I went home yesterday, I found out my daughter was one of those people, she started crying when she found out."

Front line workers' children, as well as students who have difficulty in school, are being allowed to return, with the rest of the students connecting online. While Rempel's son does alright with remote learning, her daughter has a harder time with it.

"I tried to reassure my daughter that it's only one week but I found that I was trying to reassure myself because I really hope it's only one week."

The President of the Manitoba Teachers' Society (MTS), James Bedford, says there is a lot to do in that week when it comes to making schools safer for everyone.

"Is one week enough? I think everybody in the system is going to say, 'We'll tell you in the middle of next week," says Bedford. 

Rempel is also concerned about how remote learning will affect her children in other ways. 

"I'm concerned for our kid's physical, mental, and emotional health right now," says Rempel. "I think that keeping our kids home is probably going to protect them physically from this virus, but emotionally they're going to get hit hard. It's a hard time of year. It's cold, it's dark, we're inside and you're not seeing your friends or getting out and that scares me for my kids."

Frustration from Former Teacher

Loreena Poss lives in Niverville with her husband and their three young children. Their oldest daughter is in grade one in the Hanover School Division while their second child is in preschool. Her youngest is only three months old.

"Teachers are in an impossible situation," says Poss. "I'm not teaching right now because I just had a baby but I taught between grade one and three, on top of substituting."

As a parent, Poss wasn't happy when she heard the news that kids are doing a week of remote learning.  

"I honestly don't think one week is going to do anything. I think they're going to keep on extending it like they did in the past."

Even though Poss has a teaching degree, the online learning process has not been working for her family. 

"I've taught hundreds of kids but my daughter does not learn from me. It's not as simple as giving some worksheets and then helping them do it. Kids might do that with a teacher in school but a lot of children will not do that with their parents at home. Some will but my girl resists it and it caused so many arguments last time."

Poss is not concerned about her daughter getting sick by being in the classroom. 

"I'm vaccinated but I'm not planning on getting her vaccinated because I don't see a point. From what I've seen, it's such a low risk for children. For most kids, it's like a cold or flu. Getting sick is a part of life."

Today the province announced that 59,951 first doses of the vaccine have been given to children ages five to 11. This represents 47.9 per cent of children in that age group.

MTS Focusing on Safety

"I don't think the announcement was unexpected," says Bedford. "For reasons pertaining to safety, not just safety of students and those that work within the public school system, but really the safety of all the extended families, we made a call for a limited shift of remote learning after the Christmas break because we're seeing this unprecedented spread of this new COVID variant."

The president is hoping all staff will have access to N95 masks and improvements to ventilation.

"When students fall ill, they're not going to be in school learning. When members of the school staff fall ill, they won't be at work doing their work. We just don't have the resources to staff those positions with other people. We've got a chronic shortage of substitutes in the rural area for a number of years now and that shortage has manifested in Winnipeg as well."

Bedford is hoping students can get back in school to learn, especially to close out the school year.

"Remote teaching is not what we want but rather just a reality of being safe. Remote teaching is extraordinarily difficult for teachers to accomplish. It's definitely not the best way for students to learn."

In the last week of school in December, the Manitoba government's website reported four per cent of the positive COVID-19 cases came from schools. Inside the household had the highest rate of positive cases, accounting for 64 per cent.

Bedford has been in communication with provincial leaders over the past week and says they are trying to understand the impact of how this variant affects Manitobans. 

Staff at schools will be returning back to classrooms tomorrow. 

"Kids are resilient, God is good, and we'll get through it," says Rempel. "But when you're in it, it's hard."

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