Northeastern Ontario school boards still figuring out which students can't learn online from home

Northeastern Ontario school boards are still trying to figure out how many students can't connect with the new online education system from home and how to help them.

Of the 13 school boards in the region, four did not provide any information to CBC. Others say they haven't yet completed their survey of what families have at home when it comes to internet connection and computer devices.

Some boards say they have as many as 200 students with no way to get online at home, while others have identified only 15 families.

There could still be hundreds of other students with internet at home, but whose bandwith is going to be stretched thin once the kids start learning from their kitchen.

Eve Webb is used to rationing Wi-Fi at her home in a rural area between Bruce Mines and Thessalon.

She says her 11-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son are limited to 10 minutes of YouTube a day, plus a movie on the weekends. 

"I knew it wouldn't work for everybody, based on what we're limited to," Webb says of the online learning plan. 

The 38-year-old normally drives a school bus, but is now spending more time on her online business. And her husband is also home right now until logging season starts.

Webb hopes she can get paper workbooks from her kids' teachers, but worries that online education will mean streaming a lot of videos.

"And we can't do that, because it will eventually cost us hundreds of dollars just to do that because of internet usage," she says.

"Still, I'd rather their education over a few dollars."

Webb says one option is to take the kids to the parking lot of a public library to use the free wireless internet.

Some school boards in the region considered this, but decided it was too risky to have students congregating in the parking lots of school buildings to download their assignments. 

Simon Fecteau is the director of education for the Conseil Scolaire Public du Nord-Est de l'Ontario, which has schools from Parry Sound to North Bay and up to Hearst.

He says they are figuring out how to let some students back into schools to retrieve their computers left behind before the March Break. Other boards are making similar arrangements for teachers to get into their classrooms.

Fecteau says so far they've determined that 30 of their students don't have internet at home and he says one option is for the board to pay their bill for them.

"We're talking to every family individually, but we're not opposed to spending money to making sure that all students have access," he says. 

Other boards are delivering paper assignments, sometimes by school bus.

Most school boards tell the CBC that while many of the students without home connections are in rural areas outside of cities and towns, others are in low-income families, some who may have been forced to turn off their internet after losing work because of the COVID-19 shutdown. 

Fecteau says the online learning system won't be the same as the classroom, but that will be accounted for whenever the schools re-open. 

"Every day that students are not in school has some affect," he says. 

"I'm sure we're going to get through this and 10 years from now, we're still going to have adults who have had an excellent education, even though we've had this bump in the road."

Tim Graves, a superintendent with the Near North school board, says they know that 90 per cent of students in North Bay and surrounding area have signed onto their email during the pandemic lockdown.

In the few days since the online system was launched, he says they've already been fielding concerns from parents. 

"The concerns vary from 'three hours of math a week isn't enough' to 'listen our situation at home is I'm an essential worker and I need to work and my spouse needs to work and my older child has to take care of my younger child and I don't know how they can get at some of this learning,'" says Graves. 

"In many ways, it's like building a plane while you're flying it. As we take off, there will be some turbulence."