Unprecedented times called for unprecedented measures.
Over the past 10 months, both the Simcoe County District School Board and the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board have worked to make sure proper education could still be delivered to students across Simcoe County throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
This week, chairperson for the public board, Orillia-Ramara-Severn trustee Jodi Lloyd and chairperson for the Catholic board, Barrie trustee Joe Zerdin, spoke to BarrieToday about the challenges they faced this year and what their hopes are for 2021.
“From my perspective, never in my wildest dreams would I have thought we would have to deal with something like this,” said Lloyd. “It certainly has been an enormous amount of work and it has been challenging for everybody involved.”
When Lloyd looks back on what the public board has been able to accomplish since March, she does so in awe.
“I’m not so sure that’s been truly appreciated by everyone. Whether you agree or disagree with the decisions that have been made and what has transpired, there have been an awful lot of people throughout this province working incredibly hard for students,” she said.
Lloyd says all public board trustees have worked hard this year. In her case, she says it’s the hardest she’s ever worked in her years as a trustee.
“I have never worried so much about anything in my entire life,” she said. “You want everybody to be safe and do well. You want things to run smoothly, or the best they can in the middle of a crisis. We know the toll this is taking on everybody.”
Zerdin says the Catholic board has worked over the past 10 months to be as adaptable as possible.
“Our school board has done an amazing job considering there are curve balls always being thrown and there is no script for this,” said Zerdin. “Just when we thought we may have settled something, the Ministry (of Education) would throw another curve ball.
“It’s kind of like we’re umpires. Many times, we’re only pleasing 50 per cent of the people,” he added.
Lloyd says she doesn’t believe the public board would have chosen to do anything differently this year with the benefit of hindsight.
“I think you can always second-guess yourself, but I don’t think it’s productive to do that,” said Lloyd. “Good decisions were made based on the information we had at the time. Everyone has learned as we’ve moved through this.”
Lloyd said she had hoped the province’s move to remote learning starting at the beginning of January 2021 wouldn’t have been necessary.
“Some of the situation we’re in right now and will be into January is unfortunate and I think some of it could have been avoided,” she said. “It’s better for (students) to be in school. But, safety has to always be the No. 1 priority and we’ve let that guide our decisions throughout the pandemic.”
Zerdin said Catholic board staff were preparing for a two-week break when they were informed on Dec. 21 of the upcoming shutdown.
“They’re now working this week putting plans together to completely pivot to virtual on Jan. 4. It’s for a week for elementary, but three weeks for high school (students),” he said. “There’s a lot of commitment and dedication. As chair, I couldn’t be more proud.”
As one of the roles of school board trustees is to hear feedback from families, both Lloyd and Zerdin said trustees were immensely busy hearing from families over the summer and into the fall.
“Everybody is concerned. Everybody wants the best for their children. They want their children to be as safe as possible. It’s always better to have more information, and I think the role of the trustees is to communicate and share that information,” said Lloyd. “It was a lot of fear.”
Concerns de-escalated as the semester wore on, she said.
“It’s not business as usual, and we can’t pretend that it is,” Lloyd said. “We still don’t have extracurriculars (back), or sports teams. Sometimes we have to adjust our expectations as well.”
Zerdin said that while trustees aren’t technically on the operational side, they still accept feedback on operations and forward to appropriate operational staff for answers.
“It’s about listening,” he said.
While there will inevitably be some kinks, Zerdin says overall the board is in good shape moving forward.
“I believe we’re in a position now where we have the mechanisms in place to address pandemic issues. It’s not as dramatic of a shift (now) as it was on March 12 or 13 or Aug. 31 (2020). Even with the most recent announcement, we probably have most of the (procedures) in place, it’s just a matter of implementing them over the holidays,” he said.
In 2021, Zerdin says the board will address budget, strategy and governance, and he hopes COVID updates will become one agenda item of many, as opposed to now where it still dominates many discussions.
The year 2020 was "a lot of firefighting. We haven’t focused on strategy or operational evolution. We haven’t ignored it, but the priority has been delivering quality education in a safe manner,” he said. “I’d like to see us get through to June and come September, possibly be in a reality that is more face-to-face. I’d like to see us go back to basics but also look at how we can improve and continue to evolve as a board.”
In 2021, Lloyd says it’s important to stay positive.
“The vaccine is there. It will take many months, but it’s the light at the end of the tunnel. Then, we can start to go back to the way things were,” she said. “We’d like parent volunteers back in our schools, and community back.”
“One thing that has come out of this is, we have realized how important our schools really are. They’re incredibly important,” said Lloyd.
“There’s no aspect of our lives that hasn’t changed over the past 10 months. School is very much the same. We’ve all had to learn to do things differently. Everything has changed."
