The school situation is very confused in Ontario. It doesn't help that, despite generally positive things to say about the Ford government's handling of the Covid crisis, the education ministry (and in particular Stephen Lecce, the education minister) have been singularly, spectacularly, completely incompetent throughout - communicating poorly, consulting irrelevant people, failing to engage with teachers or classroom assistants in any meaningful way, and deferring decisions about what will happen next until it's too late for anybody impacted by those decisions to do any kind of planning. Teachers, ECEs and EAs that I know are tearing their hair out - they effectively have to plan for four different scenarios, writing lesson plans for "reduced cohort" classes that may be in school every other day or every other week; preparing for online classes with "meaningful synchronous interaction" without any definition of what that means; allowing for the possibility that a full return to school may happen at any time. And in the middle of all this, they've snuck in a revised curriculum for grade 1-8 mathematics, which somehow has to get rolled in to all these plans.

I don't know how I'd feel about it if there was a mandatory return to full-time school in September. I suspect that there'll be some sort of part time reduced-cohort classroom thing with online learning in between. I'd be reluctant for my kids to be back in a full classroom with 30 other snivelling sweaty monsters, but it's been a real struggle in terms of mental wellbeing for the last three months of this year and the cobbled-together online learning stuff they've been through. It's certainly a conundrum...

My older teenager (about to turn 17) has been mostly responsible about social isolation. He has a group of two or three buddies who will meet up and go off on their bikes around the trails, or to a soccer field to kick a ball around - these excursions, while not necessarily completely socially distanced, are certainly better than hanging out together in a basement to play video games. We're grateful for good internet and online multiplayer gaming... in fact, most of their real-world activities are planned in the chat boxes of whatever game they're all playing together. Middle child and youngest are both more physically isolated, although still connected to friends online through gaming platforms. Middle child has mostly been happy being at home, but just recently has met up with friends just to hang out outdoors. On one occasion they headed (well, OK, muggins here gave them a ride) to a second-hand clothing store - she found that being in a wheelchair actually aids social distancing, because other people tend to give her plenty of room!

Early on we stayed in most of the days, only going out maybe once a week, but as things opened up and returned more normal, we go out more, almost daily to do instacart shopping for some income, we try to distance in the stores but its basically impossible to do as the stores are busy and crowded.

But with so few cases the risk doesn't seem terribly high, and they seem to be managing it well enough where you can go out.

We have are in phase 3 now which is basically the last phase, as phase 4 is return to normal without any restrictions but that wont happen unless the virus disappears, there is a vaccine, or viable treatment, so phase 3 is the last stop on the train for now.

Of course there is always the possibility of infections spiking again, or of the virus mutating causing a need for a change in protection methods. I go to two different clubs every day for a beer and chat with a few friends, and so far nobody we know seems to have it.

It's still far from clear what is going to happen when the new school year starts in August and little Miss P seems to have mixed feelings - on one hand she does miss being in school and is looking forward to getting back to classes, and seeing her friends, but is also very cautious about the pandemic.

The school is also kean to get the students back too, but as the number of new infections reported daily in NC is continuing to track steadily upwards, I am already expecting that her school will not reopen in August. There is also a middle ground possibility that the school is considering, where the school opens but only for some of the students each day, so perhaps a day-on-day-off schedule (personally I'd prefer a week-on-week-off schedule if they go down that route). In any case the school has already stated explicitly that, in the near term at least, students will not be compelled to return if they don't feel safe, so ultimately the decision may be upto little Miss P under discussion with Mrs P and me.

That said, and all things considered, I expect that we will go along with what the school arranges, i.e. that little Miss P will return as and when the school reopens.

For context I would point out that little Miss P attends a private school, which means two things [1] the school has almost total freedom to decide whether and when to reopen, and [2] the students are more engaged than school children in general, so getting them to abide by addtional SD, mask, and hygiene rules may be a bit easier and/or with better compliance than for schools in general.

The school also went to a full on-line program before the end of March - after schools were shut on the Thursday they only missed the Friday and the next week was spring break, and then they started up with on-line regular schooling on the following Wednesday the week after, after a couple of days of piloting and snagging. "Full on-line", doesn't mean sitting in fron of a camera all day, but there are camera sessions, and then tasks, projects and self-study tasks set, and work to turn in for assessment.

Indeed and BC seems to be doing a good job at watching, and changing things as needed.

Nothing is set in stone, but we haven't had a spike yet thankfully so hopefully this trend continues.

My sisters kids were supposed to go back to school mid July, but its been postponed to mid September. (they are on year round schedule, so their summer break is late May to mid July.)

They have been out of school with limited education since March I believe now, her kids schools never went to online and apparently still don't plan to.

Thanks for responding, Mr P. It sounds like a good school, and as you suggest meeting friends is important too. If good protective measures are in place, that's a reassurance. I like the idea of one week on, one week off, or even better a fortnight on and fortnight off (given the nature of Covid).