The province’s education minister says officials used the lessons learned from at-home learning during the last provincial shutdown to plan for this one.
Derek Mombourquette says they honed that plan during the Halifax-area school closures earlier in the 2020-21 school year.
Mombourquette tells The Hawk they used the lessons they learned during both of those transitions to at-home learning to make this switch as seamless as possible.
“We received a lot of feedback from families across the province to the tune of over 26,000 responses,” he says. “We made a number of significant investments when it comes to technology and ensuring that we had supports in place in the event that we had to close again.”
Mombourquette says this wave is different.
He says the methods for at-home learning remain the same.
“We closed down before; we learned a lot,” he says. “We adapted quickly to close down again and we’re monitoring, really, straight across the province, where before was just predominately Halifax.”
Mombourquette says he can’t downplay the work of teachers, parents and administrators.
He says they’re the ones who made at-home learning possible.
