EASTERN ONTARIO – Erin Blair, President of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) Upper Canada Local (UCL) said that the Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB)’s approach to remote learning for the 2020-2021 school year was seriously flawed in a letter to parents.
In a survey conducted by the UCDSB, 20 per cent of responding parents and students indicated their preference for at home learning, double what the Board had anticipated.
As a result, the UCDSB determined that it was not feasible in terms of staffing or finances to have a separate remote learning program for students.
Instead, remote learning students will be live streaming their classes and learning simultaneously with their in person peers.
In her letter to parents, Blair criticized the plan as providing an unequal level of education for students, being unfair for teachers, and a privacy risk.
“Targeting lessons for in-person instruction is simply not the same as what one would have for dedicated on-line learning,” Blair wrote. “Teachers are not lecturers standing in front of the classroom and there is a whole different dynamic involved in that, in trying to reach both groups, would cause both to suffer.”
“Privacy concerns are paramount and are really to numerous to list, but I can try to list a couple,” Blair went on to write. “First of all, can you imagine your home being broadcast five hours a day? The younger the age group, the less filtering that goes on; sometimes students do make comments that are best not broadcasted. Similarly, self-regulation can be a challenge for some students in terms of their actions. Again, do these really need to be broadcasted.”
Blair went on to criticize school board trustees being silent on the issue and encouraged parents to write their schools to indicate that they do not give permission to broadcast video or audio from their children.
