After nearly 5 months, staff and administrators in Border Land School Division (BLSD) are looking forward to welcoming students back to class next week. The division includes schools in Vita and Sprague.

"We are thrilled to have the kids coming back to school. It's been a long time," said BLSD superintendent, Krista Curry.

"We believe this is where kids should be...I understand there are parents and kids that have anxiety, and we're going to support them in a caring way and listen to their concerns and try to demonstrate to them that we are doing everything we can to make sure that where they are coming to is a safe and supportive environment," added Curry. This includes having plans in place that follow public health guidelines in order to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

Meantime, the division won't require portables or the use of community spaces in order to accommodate physical distancing in classrooms this year. Except for the odd case where a class had to be split up, Curry says for the most part kindergarten to grade 8 enrolment numbers will allow a class of students to be in one room with cohorts spaced 1 meter apart. This took some creative thinking admitted Curry, noting in some cases additional furniture had to be purchased or everything that wasn't required for teaching/learning was removed from a classroom in order to access the most amount of space.

"In a couple of schools, if there is an increase in enrolment over the summer, we may have to shift into a gym or another space in the school just because that would push the capacity of the classroom," she added.

However, there was some moving around at the high schools where larger classes were shifted into bigger rooms in order to accommodate the 2 meter social distancing requirement of every-other-day in-class learning for those grades.

As for staffing required to help facilitate some of these changes, BLSD looks to be in a good position, according to Curry. However, the situation is a bit different regarding custodial staff and the division is looking to bring in extra help as some members have been shifted from daytime hours to the evening, and in some of the smaller schools where there isn't necessarily a custodial team.

"Just with the additional requirements of wiping high-touch surfaces every ninety minutes to two hours, we may need some support," said Curry.