His first year as the superintendent of the Lord Selkirk School Division has been a lesson like no other for Jerret Long because of Covid-19.
Long oversees 15 schools with almost 4,000 students attending kindergarten to Grade 12 and readying each one for the back-to-school return has presented a challenge to everyone who works within the division.
Long first had to study the lengthy guidelines established by the government and relay them to staff. The division had to hire 14 new teachers so that most of the schools would have an extra instructor on hand if needed in the event of a teacher missing school due to illness. It also hired extra educational assistants and more custodial staff to ensure the enhanced Covid cleaning could be done efficiently each night, Long said.
“To be honest, this has been a step-by-step type of journey,” Long said on Friday of the first week of students returning to school. “We established the school board plans with the cooperation of the parents, then we deal with any issues that may come up.”
Those issues included new rules for those students taking buses to the schools, which includes either only siblings sitting with each other or with them sitting with in-school cohorts, Long said. Because not all high school students attend each day, there aren’t as many kids on the buses as in the past. Those alternate days the students do not attend, they either learn online or their teachers give them assignments to complete at home.
“We’re off to a good start,” Long said. “We couldn’t have asked for a better start with our parents and seeing the kids so excited to come back. And our staff and teachers on the front lines have been good.
“It’s managing what’s doable and we have some of the best teachers around as well.”
Long was well aware that a Churchill High School student in Winnipeg was sent home after testing positive for Covid-19 the first week back.
“That was unfortunate, and I hope for the best for that student and that the family are all good,” he said. “Public Health has a process to do what is necessary in those situations with contact tracing. We recognize that things can happen, and we do have contingency plans for that.”
But, so far, so good.
“All of our schools are in a low-risk zone,” said Long, who was the assistant superintendent for three years before taking on a type of responsibility that no other education overseer has ever had to handle before.
“If we can get through this, we can get through anything.”
