Sudbury parents weigh school options as deadline approaches

As the start of the school year draws nearer,families are once again deciding whether to send students to school in-person, or enrol them in a virtual classroom.

For the largest school board in the northeast, the deadline to decide is Monday at noon.The Rainbow District School board sent parents a survey last week, to decide between online and in-person classes.

With the beginning of a fourth wave of the pandemic underway in parts of the country, including Ontario, parents are weighing the options.

"I was actually going to send them to school, because our COVID cases in Sudbury were down," said Sudbury parent Paige Proulx, who has two boys, ages 5 and almost 7.

"I thought okay,this this perfect, you know the cases are down, everything's okay, pretty much almost everyone is vaccinated so I figured everyone should be safe, and then all of a sudden the Delta variant came up."

Proulx has now decided to keep her two sons home, and homeschool them for the second year in a row anoption she opted for because she found online learning did not work well for them. She plans to eventually send them back in person, but said she will wait until they can be vaccinated, or the case numbers in the province are significantly lower.

'He needs that in-person experience'

For Sudbury parent Laurie Lachapelle, the decision was easy.

"As soon as that survey was released, I went and filled it out, and he will be in school in-person," Lachapelle said.

Lachapelle said her seven-year-old son, Penn, had a hard time with the "abrupt" transitions between in-school and virtual learning during the last year.

"It was rough on him. And he definitely struggled. His mental health kind of went down the drain a little bit.He just wasn't himself."

While the riskof COVID-19 isstill on her mind, Lachapelle said her "concern is a lot lower than it might have been last year."

"His mental health is so important, and he needs that in-person experience," she said.

Lachapelle is looking forward to sending Penn back to school, but she said she's also been thinking about what will happen if school gets disrupted again.

"It's definitely been on my mind, more in recent weeks than earlier. Because the Delta variant, right, is such a big concern right now. So I'm definitely dreading another school year like the last two where you know he's in school for part of the year and then back to remote learning."

Her son, meanwhile, is "blissfully unaware," and "very excited about being able to go back in-person."

Like Proulx, Lachapelle is hopeful that vaccines for younger children will soon be approved, which would offer much greater peace of mind.