Educators scrambling to help students make up for lost time

Less talk, more listening and a sharp focus on what they’ll need for next year — that’s how experts say students will have to make up for lost time once their striking high school teachers are ordered back to work, likely Friday or early next week.

“Most classes these days are built on discussion, and it will be reduced — which is not a good thing because it’s an important part of learning, but it will be necessary in order to meet the deadline,” said veteran educator Frank Kelly, executive director of the Council of Ontario Directors of Education.

He said there likely will be fewer assignments and more online help for some 70,000 Ontario high school students who have missed school in Durham, Peel and Sudbury since their teachers went on strike.

The Wynne government introduced back-to-work legislation Monday but delays by the New Democrats could mean students have to wait one more week for school.

While no academic year has been lost in Ontario due to a strike, the 21,000 Durham students whose teachers walked off the job April 20 face covering nine weeks of curriculum in just three weeks left of class — or close to five weeks, if the board cancels exams as Durham District School Board chair Michael Barrett has suggested.

Students are divided over the possible scrapping of exams, said Mississauga Student Trevor Sookraj, president of the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association.

“A lot say, ‘I need the exams to pull my marks up,’ but others, especially in Grade 9 to 11, say ‘Let’s just learn the course material to get as caught up as possible for next year.’”

Still, the focus will be tight, said Kelly, and “students will miss some good things.

“In most subjects there are units that can be taught ‘if there’s time,’ and to cut some time you might not go into those,” said Kelly. “But there are things that are seen as significant building blocks of next year’s curriculum, and whether it’s history or math they have to be taught.”

Janet McDougald, chair of the Peel District School Board, said she expects the education ministry to give boards direction on how to cram missed curriculum into the remaining month of school, possibly by cancelling exams, modifying lessons or waiving the 110 hours required to earn a credit.

McDougald noted Education Minister Liz Sandals has said “these (strike-bound) students would not be disadvantaged, and I’m sure she can make that exception.

“Obviously there are going to have to be some extraordinary changes. This is an extraordinary moment and we won’t be able to make up all that time,” said McDougald. “We’ll have to prioritize.”

Don Chaumont was a student during the longest school strike in Ontario; a 56-day walkout in 1980 in Sudbury. When students went back, curriculum was compressed into the final two months of school “and it was a heavy workload trying to catch up on math and science,” he said.

“It did have a negative impact for us going into Grade 12 and then to Grade 13 and university — I think we missed a lot. Everything had to be fast-tracked. For some students it was a bit much,” said Chaumont, now a leadership consultant based near Montreal.

“Teachers modified the curriculum to suit the time we had, and it was rushed,” he added. In the fall, teachers took time to review material that may have been missed the year before.

Durham school board staff will work with teachers to make sure students have the skills they need going forward — “with a focus on gap closing and a credit recovery model to support our students in their learning,” said spokesperson Andrea Pidwerbecki. Credit recovery is an intensive remedial program for portions of the curriculum that some students have not mastered.

Dave Barrowclough, president of the Durham local of the high school teachers’ union, said, “Teachers are creative people and will get through what they need to get through — focus on the important pieces and make sure those are emphasized.”

However Kelly said he worries that the strike can further alienate students on the margins “because the apathy that happens with a strike can make it hard for students to get back into it, and that’s troublesome.

“But is it a total loss? No — I’ve always been impressed by the resilience of youth.”

With files from Kristin Rushowy