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As the 2022/2023 school year begins and attendance in Catholic schools returns to near pre-COVID numbers, Catholic school teachers and staff are taking the lessons they learned during last year’s COVID struggles to help build stronger, more connected communities.
During 2021/2022, students and teachers found the restrictions and regulations were more than just rules: they had a deeper impact on the way that schools functioned and how students, teachers, and parents lived within the school community.
“We have a great staff and we made the adaptations well,” Holy Trinity Elementary School principal Kevin Smith told The B.C. Catholic. “Our community and school staff did everything we needed to do.”
Still, this turned out to be a two-edged sword for many. Holy Trinity Elementary, for example, ended up reorganizing its Christmas Concert as an outdoor event, which made for a memorable night under the stars.
“Those experiences came out of COVID as blessings that were not expected,” Smith Said. Such developments drove home the importance of connection for the health of a community, but “it was a lot of extra work,” he added.
“We got used to it,” he said about the school’s response to COVID restrictions, and while the school was able to run smoothly, Smith thinks there may need to be a relearning of some things that used to be ordinary parts of school life.
“This [year] will be the first time that some parents have ever meaningfully been in the school and in the classroom space,” he said, musing on repercussions of last year.
Even simple things, like parent-teacher meets, and the beginning of the school year BBQs require a bit of readjustment but things are going well so far.
“A big thing that people value about our Catholic schools is the opportunity to be a part of our faith communities,” Smith said. “We have a lot of fellowships,” in addition to practical opportunities for volunteer work.
A big focus in the coming year will be to draw everyone back in and offer them places to be a part of the school community.
“It is not just about parents being with their kids,” Smith said. Opportunities such as volunteer work, or school community days help connect them to everyone else in the community as well.
School Masses were particularly affected by COVID because before COVID they were often attended by everyone in the community, especially parents. Now, with restrictions gone, parents will be able to attend again.
In addition to these philosophical lessons gleaned from COVID, the school found some practical value in possibly the most ubiquitous aspects of COVID times: teleconferencing and the ever-present Zoom.
Smith said the school was pleased to find that Zoom meetings allowed parents who would normally not be able to attend parent-teacher meetings because of shift work or non-traditional hours to be more involved in their children’s learning.
COVID pushed many schools to adopt more technological tools like Google Classroom, and Smith says these tools have been a valuable addition to their work and will remain for the foreseeable future.
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