Southwestern Ontario's largest school board is working to accommodate another surge of students switching from in-person to full remote learning.
The Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB) has received parent requests to shift approximately 985 elementary students to the virtual learning model next month.
"There is a very, very significant operational impact and re-organization required to meet these requests," TVDSB Education Director Mark Fisher said in a report delivered to the board Tuesday night. "985 students is a significant number to transition from in-person to full remote learning as staff will need to be relocated to accommodate these students and still adhere to class size and collective agreement requirements. This has widespread impact across the entire district."
The transition of nearly 1,000 elementary students means 15 per cent of the board's 81,500 students will be learning online only. It breaks down to 45,415 elementary students learning in person while 9,995 of their peers are doing full remote learning. In the board's high schools, 21,212 students are participating in in-person learning, while 2,868 students are online only.
Fisher said the spike in students requesting a learning model change is fueled by the small number of COVID-19 cases that have been confirmed at schools within the board.
"Whenever we have a positive case then we have a huge upturn in people wanting to move from face-to-face to remote learning," said Fisher. "It is really difficult to sustain."
Since classes resumed in September, there have been 15 COVID-19 cases at London-area schools, including one that remains active in the Thames Valley board.
Fisher stressed during his report that accommodating any additional student transitions could prove to be near impossible.
"Any future requests would potentially result in collapsing classes and substantial reorganization at the brick-and-mortar schools, which is disruptive to parents, disruptive to students, and also is more dangerous from a health perspective because you would be mixing up cohorts," said Fisher.
Prior to the start of the school year, parents were given the chance to select how their child would learn this year - either in-person or through full remote learning. An option to switch their child's learning model on November 2 and February 8 for elementary and February 4 for high schoolers was also made available.
"We have left no stone unturned, no budget area untouched in order to maintain this incredibly challenging new model of education in Ontario, where basically we are funded to run one model and we are simultaneously running two models of education," said Fisher.
Due to the high number of elementary students switching to full remote learning the transition date has been extended to November 16. Parents will receive additional information about their child's new learning model in the coming days.
