Alberta Education’s new e-Tutoring Hub to help students catch up during the pandemic is another provincial disappointment for parents, says the president of the Alberta School Councils’ Association.
Brandi Rai said Albertans who have no connections to schools may not realize the distress families are experiencing.
“You may not understand the dumpster fire that education is right now for many families across the province, and how sick our children are, and how understaffed our schools are, and how unsafe those learning environments are mentally and physically for our children,” Rai said.
Last week, e-Tutoring Hub launched with free, pre-recorded video tutoring sessions for students in Grades 4 to 9 to catch up on literacy and numeracy skills they may have fallen behind on due to the pandemic.
Katherine Stavropoulos, press secretary for the office of Education Minister Adriana LaGrange, said the hub builds on the Alberta government’s investment of up to $45 million to address COVID-19-related learning disruptions for students in grades 1 to 3.
“These initial sessions focus on literacy and numeracy because information collected from school authorities show that is where students from Grades 4 to 9 may require additional supports as a result of COVID-19 learning disruptions. Later in the year, the tutoring services will be expanded to cover more grades and subjects, including live tutoring sessions,” Stavropoulos said in a statement.
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Rai said parents are concerned that the tutoring content is not relevant for students, and if online learning caused students’ problems, how will online tutoring help?
“We’ve heard from parents that are quite disappointed that this was a tool that was offered because it was so poorly executed.”
The association has alerted Alberta Education to the problems that have been identified.
Rai added she has heard of parents in the last year and a half who have paid for tutoring because their children need extra help they haven’t been able to receive at school for one reason or another.
Yani Pratiwi, owner of Mathnasium: The Math Learning Centre in Red Deer, said parents and students definitely prefer sitting down face to face with an instructor.
“They’re just tired. They are overwhelmed with online programs from our experience. Very few students choose online and they live far away,” Pratiwi said.
She said there is no appetite for online learning, but when students do opt for online, the sessions are live, rather than pre-recorded.
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Rai noted even parents who believe in-person learning is the best thing for their children are really having a tough time during the fifth COVID-19 wave.
“Families right now are struggling and they are reporting decreased mental health and increased anxiety in some students who have never presented with those symptoms throughout the entirety of this pandemic,” Rai said.
Stavropoulos said experts agree and continue to stress the importance of in-person learning to the overall health of children and youth.
“That is why Alberta’s government has placed such a high priority on safe in-class instruction and making sure schools have the tools they need to continue providing a world-class education to Alberta students. To support their overall wellbeing, K-12 students returned to in-person learning with the added safety of access to rapid tests and millions of medical-grade masks,” Stavropoulos said.
She added that school authorities have had access to over $1 billion for COVID-19. Also, overall capital and operating reserves for authorities sit at more than $700 million.
szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com
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