Since the end of March students in Rocky View Schools (RVS) have been doing their learning at-home after school classes were cancelled as the COVID-19 crisis ramped up.  

Between April 29th and May 8th, RVS surveyed families on some of the challenges and successes that they've seen in the jurisdiction's Learning Continuity Plan and at a recent meeting of the Board of Trustees, Superintendent Greg Luterbach took trustees through a summary of some of the highlights and problem areas the survey revealed.

The online survey generated 2,881 responses.  The good news was that the vast majority of parents expressed overall success with their children's learning plan.  There were also a few frustrations pointed out and, what Luterbach felt were very good ideas provided by the parents.

Over 75 percent of respondents said that the amount of work being requested by their child’s teachers each week was in line with provincial government expectations, 15 percent stated the work requested was taking longer than expected and just under 10 percent said the work requested took less time than the provincial expectation.

When it came to the clarity of the at-home plan, more than 90 percent of respondents to the survey agreed that it was clear what their child needs to accomplish each week to demonstrate their learning.

Luterbach was mildly surprised by the high degree of confidence expressed by parents.   "Kind of asking parents how they're doing, how they're feeling how's their confidence in supporting their child and fulfilling the plan," Luterbach explains.  "What we heard is over 80 percent rated themselves between moderately and extremely confident in supporting their child, whereas we had about six percent describe themselves as not at all confident in supporting their child."

Following the questions on expectations, clarity, and confidence, the survey then moved on to open-ended questions on ways that confidence could be built.  Luterbach says parents reaffirmed the need for flexibility in the plan.  "Some of them are feeling incredibly overwhelmed, and/or 'I'm not a trained teacher.'  They look at the plan and don't necessarily know how to connect all the dots."

Luterbach then moved on to the question around weekly one-on-one check-ins for individual students or small groups.  "Parents talked about, 'it's great that there's check-ins for my kids, but I wouldn't mind a check-in, getting parents and families together as a way to support that, so again, good ideas."

You can read the highlights of the survey and the actions being taken HERE.

Schools were provided with the unedited results and comments and asked to review them.  Then, based on the information collected, they were instructed to identify where they could provide some support and guidance to their staff in order to support students and families. 

A group of senior administration educators met to review the results and will be making some changes as a result of the feedback collected. 

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