Richardson details challenging first year as SD 57 Superintendent

What a year to become a superintendent of a school district in BC.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March, the education sector has dealt with the suspension of in-class instruction, budget shortfalls across the board, classes returning in the fall along with a number of exposure events, to say the least.

All of the above was faced head-on by School District 57 head Anita Richardson as 2020 threw no shortage of curveballs.

In a year-end interview with MyPGNow.com, Richardson stated no one from the local school was prepared for this or asked for it.

“And suddenly, we are needing to be experts on how to best navigate the world that we currently live in. Teachers have had to completely reinvent how they teach, not once, but twice and previously, that would be unthinkable.”

Richardson added the emotional strain of the pandemic has impacted both students and staff alike.

“We are constantly grieving things we have lost or how we used to be able to work, play, study, learn and live and that constant strain that is connected to continually re-envision how we do those things in a COVID world.”

“Children and youth are trying to learn and grow in this pressurized system and adults are trying to figure out how to best support them and that is the basis of the largest strain on our system in general – the underpinnings of the emotion, the tension, the anxiety, the stress.”

When the pandemic first broke out in March, the BC government suspended in-class instruction moving to an on-line, remote learning-based system virtually overnight, however, Richardson stated that such a move may not have been necessary in the first place.

“It’s nice to hear the provincial health officials say now their biggest regret or mistake was closing down schools in the first place. However, that doesn’t change what we went through back in March, and hearing that news right before spring break and for us having that following the announcement was a bit of a gift. We were not caught in the same position as some of our other districts and jurisdictions across the province or even the country that was actually heading into classes the following Monday we actually had a two-week reprieve so to speak so we could try and get some guidance.”

SD 57 not unlike any other districts in BC is currently mired in financial challenges.

In September, the school board projected a 2.3-million dollar budget shortfall after 400 students and their families withdrew to pursue other educational opportunities.

This led to eighteen teachers within the school district being redeployed to different positions.

Despite all of that, additional funding from both the provincial and federal governments are helping them weather the storm.

“We’ve managed to meet any of the challenges that the budget shortfall put in front of us and we are actually functioning quite well financially at this point in time and the projections for the year so we are grateful for the additional funds from both the provincial and federal governments allowing us to provide more staffing.”

As we hit the halfway point of the academic year, parental anxiety remains at an all-time due to the volume of potential exposure events that have been detected by Northern Health at PG schools.

Concerns around a contact tracing backlog were raised by both the BC Teachers Federation and the PG District Teachers Association following a situation at Heather Park where a number of staff members called in sick and were awaiting the results of the COVID test to come back.

Even with the increased worry from stakeholders and parents, Richardson continues to maintain that schools continue to be safe learning environments for students.

“People are catching COVID in social gatherings in our community and may or may not attend a school while they may be contagious – because of the way the system is set up, schools have to report on every one of those instances where they may be a case connected to a school.”

“The evidence that we have from our own province is that students and staff are safe at schools. The exposures we hear about are reported those are instances where an individual may or may not have been in a school and it’s not an indicator of actual risk to others and it’s not at all an indicator of cases of COVID that have arisen in our schools.”

In addition, she is of the opinion schools have shown more transparency around exposures than some in the business community.

“We get this perception that there is all of this COVID in our schools when in actual fact that’s not reality based on the evidence, based on the numbers in our province in the cases that were in any way connected to a school.”

“In the worst-hit districts in our province, schools are still four times safer than being out in the general population we simply don’t hear about the exposure events at Mr Mikes or Canadian Tire or Costco or Superstore they are not reported so we don’t know – we do not know what our risk is when we go out in these public settings but we do hear about the risks that might be associated with schools so it creates this false sense of a lack of public safety when in actual fact our schools are still very safe.”

One of the lone bright spots in 2020 for SD 57 was the opening of the new 44-million dollar Shas Ti-Kelly Road Secondary School, which opened to students in September.

Richardson spoke glowingly about the new facility stating it’s designed with today’s learning in mind.

“So, certainly a marvel within itself and to open it on time and within budget in a COVID world was a challenge that the district met, that’s a great highlight of the year for sure.”

“It’s an incredible thing to see, I know we got the chance to walk through that building together and the comments that were made about the design and how it supports learning and how it brings the outdoors in and what we know best about student learning.”

It has the capacity to hold 900 students, 120 more than the old Kelly Road Secondary.

The original building is expected to be demolished in the spring.