Ontario students won’t return to class until at least May 4, and the province’s plans for them during the extended school shutdown include grade-by-grade guidelines for the number of hours they should spend on assignments each week while at home.

Student work will be marked, and kids can expect final grades and end-of-year report cards, said Education Minister Stephen Lecce, who announced the changes alongside Premier Doug Ford on Tuesday.

“We’re ensuring the teacher-student relationship is restored throughout this period of school closure,” Lecce said. “Our aim is to provide all of them with some sense of stability and hope amid this difficulty. These are extraordinary times.”

Acknowledging “nothing about this situation is ideal,” Lecce said he hopes the end of the school year can be salvaged depending on how the COVID-19 outbreak progresses, but that schools will reopen “only if it is safe.”

Ford said as of now, public schools will remain closed until the start of May.

“As I’ve told you before, the situation continues to change day by day, hour by hour,” Ford said at his daily briefing, broadcast to Ontarians. “And in order to protect our children, I’m prepared to extend these closures even further if we have to.”

The province’s guidelines mean that starting next week, students in kindergarten to Grade 6 are expected to complete five hours of schoolwork a week, grades 7 and 8 are to do 10 hours, and secondary students three hours per week, per course (or 1.5 hours per course for those attending a non-semestered school).

Lecce said this next phase of learning will be teacher-led and will “create some predictability” for families and educators who are expected to reach out to students and parents this week as boards determine which families have computer and internet access and what accommodations may be needed.

He said students who need computers could get a loaner from their school and those who need to work on paper could find it delivered by school bus. The board is considering creative options to help these students.

Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, said “we will do our best to provide the best support we can to students under these circumstances.”

And, he added, it will take time for the province and boards to move to this new reality, and “it will be imperfect, and that’s OK.”

However, he said he is concerned about the requirement for final grades, worrying that could lead to the “exacerbation of inequities for kids” depending on their family’s circumstances.

That concern is shared by Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, who said trustees will be “paying attention” to the situation and ensuring the process is fair.

She said the government’s plans are a “step in the right direction” and the ministry has put a lot of hard work into determining next steps during these unprecedented times.

“There’s nothing the same as being in school,” she said, adding boards are working hard to ensure students don’t slip through the cracks during the shutdown.

“We are hoping for a bit of patience until we figure out what works for our students” and that will require “completely out-of-the-box thinking” in some cases, she added.

Lecce has said mental health supports will be available to students and social workers and psychologists are to begin reaching out to students.

Parents of special-needs students, he said, are “truly working so hard to support their children at home, and I want them to know that we recognize this difficulty. And that is why we are providing additional parent supports and guidance for you” including “untraditional methods of delivery” of supports from education assistants and other support staff.

Lecce also reassured students in Grade 11 and 12 that “we will do whatever it takes to ensure you graduate — full stop.”

As for parents already frazzled with looking after their children as they continue to go to work or work at home, Lecce said “I know that educators are going to be as flexible as they can to accommodate” different home situations.

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He said assessing work during the shutdown is important so that students at home “know that the next few weeks is really a time of learning. And while school may be out until (May 4), classes are back in session and they have a role to play, to be disciplined and be focused on materials and to be graded.”

However, he added, “there is an element of flexibility and reasonableness that’s being communicated to the sector, to educators, to our federation partners. Everyone recognizes the situation we’re in.”

Ontario’s plan is similar to the one unveiled in Alberta, where students have also been given an expected number of hours of schoolwork per week.

There, like here, teachers are expected to focus on math, literacy, science and social studies.

NDP education critic Marit Stiles said the province must soon start planning for the long term, as “parents, students and educators need assurances from the government that it will provide the supports that will be needed when school returns” and students have gaps in their learning.

“We can’t pretend it will be business as usual.”

With files from Wanyee Li

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