What will a ‘normal’ school year look like? These five Canadian families are eager to find out

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This school year looks to be the closest to “normal” for parents and kids in a long time. There are no longer the mask mandates, online learning, limited cohorts and other pandemic measures that have defined school since March, 2020. But COVID-19, and how it could affect this school year, is very much a concern for many parents. The Globe and Mail’s Dave McGinn spoke to five families from across the country about what is on their minds as summer break comes to an end.

The athletes

When their son’s high-school football team resumed play last year, Nigel and Jill Paris saw him go from abjectly learning online alone in his room to excitedly talking about riding the bus to games with his teammates. During virtual schooling, both his kids were “totally bored,” says Mr. Paris, a manager at Purolator who lives in Milton, Ont.

Lincoln will be back on the team this year as he enters Grade 10. His younger sister, Sloane, will be in competitive cheer. Athletics play a huge role in their well-being, Mr. Paris says. Playing on the trampoline – “it was a COVID purchase” – and exercising in the family’s home gym helped them fight ennui and stay fit, but they are all looking forward to the return of team sports and their many benefits.

“It builds character, it builds confidence,” Mr. Paris says. It is also a vital part of their social lives, particularly for their teenage son. Getting to spend time with his teammates clearly buoyed his spirits and benefited his mental health after so much isolation, Ms. Paris says.

“I just want a healthy year and for them to catch up on everything they’ve missed out on for so much of the past two years,” Mr. Paris says.

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The homeschooler

Lori Kent began homeschooling her son, Cameron, after both grew frustrated with online learning. “There wasn’t a lot of interaction and I would get e-mails with all the stuff he had to do” Ms. Kent says, adding it then became a matter of “me nagging him to do it.”

In the summer of 2020, Cameron begged not to go back to school, says Ms. Kent, who lives just outside of Calgary. Learning at home would mean no extracurricular activities, no music classes – none of the things he loved about attending school – but getting to study at his own speed and in his own way, often watching videos to supplement dry textbooks, was still preferable.

While homeschooling has its challenges – ”I can spend days looking for resources,” Ms. Kent says – it has many advantages for the family as a whole.

For one, it allows them to travel, which Ms. Kent says is the thing her family is most looking forward to about this school year. Both Ms. Kent and her husband are retired. This year they will all be going to Scotland and Ireland in September, then Mexico in January and Japan in the fall, something they couldn’t do if Cameron was in a brick-and-mortar school.

Even when staying put, the flexibility is beneficial. Now that Cameron is 13, he’s much happier being able to sleep in. And because he can make his way through material much quicker than in a classroom, he has more free time during the day. “We don’t have to wake up at 6:30 in the morning so we can get him on the school bus,” Ms. Kent says “Our time is our own.”

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The mother with an autoimmune disease

“This will hopefully be the first ‘normal’ year for my youngest at least, and for my oldest the first she’ll remember,” says Rebecca Scott Rawn, whose daughters are going in to Grade 1 and Grade 3.

Ms. Scott Rawn was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2012, which heightened concerns about getting sick. The main challenge this school year will be balancing normalcy with safety. “We were quite cautious,” she says of life during the pandemic. Any grocery shopping or other necessary errands were usually done by her husband or mother. “I stayed pretty close to home.”

The kids will not have to wear masks at school, but they will get their boosters as soon as possible, says Ms. Scott Rawn, who lives in Orangeville, Ont., where she works for an organization that runs senior care homes.

“I am worried about them getting sick. Even simple things like getting a cold and then having to stay home for a few days, just logistically trying to manage through that.”

But she is mostly optimistic, especially because her daughters will get to play with each other at school now that they are no longer separated by cohorting.

“I am actually quite excited that at recess they’re going to get the chance to actually see each other.”

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The student with support needs

“I am dreading back to school,” says Kerri-Anne Cairns, a stay-at-home mother in Burnaby, B.C.

While helping with online learning during the pandemic, Ms. Cairns began to see changes in her daughter. “I started noticing my daughter struggling more with anxiety, presenting as new debilitating fears of the dark, sleeping alone, bugs and other general worries which began consuming our day. Schoolwork and homework became a constant struggle and trigger,” Ms. Cairns says. Her daughter has since been diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety and depression.

“There’s no support for her in the school. It’s a nightmare. She’s going into Grade 6 and she’s at a Grade 2 level.”

Prepandemic, her daughter’s class had an educational assistant, but it was just one person dealing with the entire class, including four children with support needs, so her daughter never received the support she required, Ms. Cairns says.

She is not optimistic the situation will be much different this school year, and worries that struggling to make up for the learning loss will exacerbate her daughter’s anxiety, creating a vicious loop. Ultimately, Ms. Cairns says she will pull her out of school if it becomes too much of a stress on her daughter.

She and her daughter are both vaccinated against COVID-19, but Ms. Cairns is still concerned about the virus. She is also frightened by the prospect of her daughter interacting with other kids at school and possibly getting sick. “She doesn’t know boundaries, so she isn’t good with social distancing. It’s scary.”

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The kindergartner

Kerryan Miller’s two sons will be starting junior and senior kindergarten this year, and the nursing student in Toronto has mixed feelings.

“I don’t really know what to expect,” she says.

The many disruptions of the pandemic have made Ms. Miller worried about classrooms closing because of sick children, but she remains hopeful about the prospect of a smooth, consistent school year in which her children get to see their friends every day.

“It’s been a rough couple of years, mostly indoors and without many activities to do outside.”

Ms. Miller had to help one of her sons with virtual learning while she herself was trying to do online classes as she studies to become a nurse practitioner. “I had to turn my mic off so my professor couldn’t hear what was going on and monitor my son because he didn’t know how to operate his computer.”

She does not want to see a return to online learning this year. “It’s very stressful,” she says.

Ms. Miller would like most if not all kids to be vaccinated to help prevent children being sent home to quarantine.

“I’m hoping most of the kids get their shots to prevent COVID. It’s another way of helping them to stay in school.”

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