Schools boards in Sarnia-Lambton and Chatham-Kent are gradually moving towards pre-pandemic operations.
Lambton Kent District School Board Director of Education John Howitt said the COVID-19 protocols that will be in place will be very similar to what they were in May and June.
"Masking will be voluntary and we will be continuing to have the focus on hand hygiene, hand sanitizer and soap available of course, the hepa filters in place in every instructional space across our board that's occupied, [and] ventilation is running on extended hours."
Of the roughly 21,700 students enrolled for September, around 310 students have opted for virtual learning, down from the roughly 800 who were online in 2021-22.
The St. Clair Catholic District School Board has around 50 of its 8,700 students signed up for virtual learning.
Director of Education Scott Johnson said the catholic board is really looking forward to shifting the paradigm from fear and protocols to one of hope and opportunity as they, hopefully, exit the pandemic and return to pre-pandemic opportunities.
"Where we have clubs and teams and experiential learning and social justice and athletics. We're looking forward to really making sure we know which students and families were most impacted by the pandemic in the last couple years and making sure that we leverage our staff and our programming to support those students."
Johnson said the protocols that they had in place in June is where they're starting the new school year.
"There's no requirement to mask or to cohort. Visitors are allowed back into our schools. If a staff or student wants to wear a mask we will provide them and gladly welcome them into our schools but it is not required. We will have rapid antigen tests available but students are not required to take them and they can ask for them at the main office."
Johnson said they're looking to increase the breadth and depth of experiential learning opportunities.
"Because much of the pandemic we were really limited to keeping students in the classrooms and the science tells us that if we get students outside, hands-on experiential learning, they're far more engaged and far more inspired to learn."
Both school boards are also preparing for de-streaming, which will be happening across a number of classes in grade nine. Howitt said de-streaming is something that's really going to have a positive impact on first year high-schoolers and their curriculum.
"It's not academic and applied streams that the students pick, but instead all students are in a same general level class for their programming."
In July, the province released plans to complete the de-streaming of all grade nine courses.
Howitt said statistically when students are streamed, they're not always streamed into the right stream for them.
"Unfortunately, students who have been streamed into the applied stream have graduated at a lower rate when we know students who are in the applied stream are every bit as capable of graduating as their classmates in the academic stream."
Howitt added that those who might be considered marginalized have been streamed into the applied courses more often than students who are not. He said this is very concerning because they want to provide an equitable opportunity for all students to reach graduation.
Howitt said they're happy to see that the board's declining enrollment is a little more stable than it has been over the last 10 years -- it's up roughly 200 students from last year.
"However, we do continue to recognize that enrollment is a concern for us especially when we have so many excess student spaces in our schools, and that limits our ability at times to offer full programming to our students especially in our smaller secondary schools."
Howitt said that's part of the reason they're advocating for the moratorium to be lifted to allow communities to have a conversation with trustees about right-sizing the number of facilities for students.
Johnson said the catholic board's enrollment has definitely leveled off and is within a few dozen students of what they had last year.
"Of note, we have had an increase in the number of international students enrolling in our schools which is a nice blessing to have, many of whom are accompanying parents either studying at the college or accepting new jobs in the area."
The new school year begins Tuesday, September 6.
With files from Stephanie Chaves
