Boissevain School can now have all of their students attend classes full time. They were planning to start Tuesday, February 9, but a hydro outage delayed their move. By the next day the Legion Hall was open for classes. Boissevain Principal Stephanie Emberly is very pleased with the development.
“This move is significant for staff and students,” Emberly stated. “We believe that this is the best thing we can do for our students right now, for their academics and for their social-emotional well-being.”
In a letter to parents, the school explained that Grades 9 and 10 would remain upstairs in the school, but would be coming every day. They are to bring their Chromebooks each day, as they will be spread among the classrooms. They are to continue bringing water bottles from home and the same COVID rules such as staying home while symptomatic and mask wearing still apply.
Grades 11 and 12 will be meeting at the Legion each day. The majority of classes will be in person with a teacher, with staff moving back and forth from the hall to the school each day. A few classes that are Grades 10 and 11 combined will be split with teachers working in person and remotely. Safety protocols will be the same as at the school.
The municipality is clearing the parking lot across the street from the Legion for use by staff and students. They are to park there and not on the street so it does not impact the buses or neigbourhood traffic. Cook Street is also to be kept clear of vehicles for the buses and student safety.
Buses will drop students off at the front of the Legion. Normal routes will be maintained with the drop off at the school coming first. They will pick up at the hall first in the afternoon, arriving at 3:05. Buses will take students from the Grade 11 Human Ecology Class back and forth from the school to the hall.
Grade 11’s are to enter at the front as their classes are on the upper level, with Grade 12’s going in the Cook Street entrance and heading downstairs. This keeps foot traffic to a minimum. Teachers will be travelling back and forth to the school, but there will always be two adults at the site for safety reasons.
The school has hired Shanda Ferguson to do cleaning, including a deep clean of all areas each night. All of the students involved in the move will be one cohort, so any combined classes can be held, with students to hand sanitize when moving between classrooms.
The plan is for this change to be sustainable until the end of the school year in June. Emberly gives a lot of credit to all of the staff for making this change a reality. This has been a school year like no other, with a lot of challenges.
“Making this happen stretches our teachers even more than they were before. We know that our schools everywhere are stretched thin for staffing, and being spread out in multiple rooms with one class – these are very difficult challenges to navigate. Now we are adding to that travelling during the day between two campuses. That means increased duties, and schedule changes and many more details that most people will never know about, but it’s worth it.”
She added it was always important to get all of their students back in active classes, and delayed or not, the Legion move was part of the plans.
“It was never a question of if we could make it happen,” Emberly explained, “just when we could make it happen.”

by PAUL RAYNER, Recorder staff