Update for Families January 14th 2021

With the newly announced Provincial Response to Covid-19 we will continue with remote learning for a little longer (Feb. 10^th is most recent date). Thank you all for your efforts to make the best of these circumstances while helping your children to learn from home. We continue to provide synchronous (180 mins- Kdgn and 225 mins daily Gr. 1-8) and asynchronous learning in keeping with Ministerial Directives. We also recognize that being in front of screens for this amount of time may not be what is best for all students. You know your child/ren best and what will be the most effective balance of time both in front of and away from screens. Ensuring connection with peers/teachers is maintained for a sense of well-being and learning tasks are helping to further academic understandings remain priorities. We have heard from some families, things that are working well, and some areas that could be improved. Thank you for your feedback – we appreciate hearing what the learning looks like from your perspective and will continue to work together to enhance the experience to the best of our abilities.

At this time the HWDSB is not issuing devices to Kindergarten students. Work packages are being made available through our educators and we continue to connect online as possible. For families with children in Grades 1-8 who may be struggling with sharing devices, or Internet, please email us at [email protected] We will make requests for devices as needed. If you have a device and no longer require it, similarly, please email us to arrange time to return it.

Families of Grade 7 and 8 students please note Public Health has cancelled all community immunization plans for the time being. When it is safe to do so, new dates will be announced.

Our vision input process using Thought Exchange wrapped up at the end of December. We are currently collating the results, looking at themes that emerged, and will be sharing a final report once completed. Thank you for your contributions to developing Balaclava’s School Vision!

Thank you for your continued support.

Stay safe everyone.