Shifting COVID-19 health and safety guidelines have forced the Thames Valley District School Board to delay all classes by one week.
During its meeting on Tuesday evening, the board announced that the first day of school for elementary and secondary students has been pushed to Monday, September 14.
As previously announced by the board, there will be a staggered start for elementary students, which will now take place between September 14-17, with all students back to school by September 18. Parents will be notified by the end of the week when their child will start school.
During Tuesday's meeting, Director of Education Mark Fisher said a number of factors have resulted in the decision to delay the start of classes, including shifting direction from the Ministry of Education and the high number of students who have registered for in-person learning.
As recent as this past Friday, the board received further instruction from the ministry that it must adjust its in-person learning model to maintain 100 direct and indirect contacts for students. To meet this and other ministry requirements, the board has been forced to change the learning model for secondary school students from two classes per day, to one class per day.
Fisher said it will require significant work to reschedule every school within the Thames Valley district.
"These changes affect every single student's schedule in the district and over 25,000 secondary students are being re-timetabled as we speak," he said. "While this is happening, we are also organizing full remote learning for over 12,280 students. This is a challenging undertaking."
Fisher added that the board has received very little funding from the ministry to support staff transition to remote learning. He said the board and its staff have been "stretched to the absolute limit" to accomplish the task of preparing schools.
"We have no choice but to take the time needed to reorganize for reopening and doing the very best that we can," he said. "We recognize that changes at this late stage are disruptive but we are doing what is best for our students and our staff with the latest health and safety information that we have."
Due to the new ministry requirements, secondary students will now be attending one course per day for 240 minutes, rather than two. Students will complete two courses over a 10-week period, with those courses alternating each week.
Students participating in remote learning will log into a learning platform for a school day that will last 300 minutes. Students will have periods of daily live, real-time learning, as well as periods of independent learning.
Fisher said the board is working diligently to ensure its back to school plan is in place when students arrive during the first week of classes.
"The [delayed start] provides staff the additional time, we believe, is crucial to prepare their new learning spaces, to finalize, understand and be comfortable with all of the new routines," he said.
Ontario children have not been back inside the classroom since March when all schools were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.