The Minister of Education announced on Thursday, November 18th, that Ontario high schools will be able to return to their regular, pre-pandemic semester schedules, having four courses a day, starting the following semester (Febuary 7th, 2022). On Monday, November 22nd, the Minister announced a modification, stating that "beginning Monday, Nov. 29, all secondary schools in the Halton District School Board will change to a four-course per day schedule". 

With such little time to adapt, students and teachers alike have been struggling to make accommodations and tweaks in their plans & schedules to be able to function with this sudden and abrupt change of structure, switching from a weekly alternating schedule designed for learning during the current COVID-19 pandemic, to one we were comfortable with before the pandemic and the changes that took place with our system. 

Graduating Grade 12 students like myself have been especially frustrated at the fact, given that we are in a year where everything is at stake, and also that we are tired of being used as guinea pigs, having been tested and struggled in several different models already, including the current Modified Semester Schedule, which many students have already proven to be taking a major toll on their success in such a vital year, jeopardizing the post secondary plans of many.

As if this year has not posed enough challenges with our education already, the School Board expects students to adopt a different approach & mindset to learning once again, and adapt to the expansion of courses and regular amount of content intake per day, with only the current week to prepare and make the shift. It is draining to have to adapt to multiple new models and ways of learning, and constantly change our working habits--and it has been even more stressful this time around as students are concerned over adapting to a full schedule and having to juggle four courses the entire time throughout the semester amidst existing obstacles that the pandemic has brought to our learning.

We propose that the Halton District School Board do either of the following; 

1. Keep the current Modified Semester model and have our schedule remain unchanged, or;

2. Return to the Quadmester model implemented during the 2020-21 school year for the second semester of the current school year, as students have expressed that the latter has made them more successful in the past.

We hope our opinions are taken into account. 

Let's ensure together that the class of 2022 and countless others within HDSB are successful this year, and do not have to face the tolls that experimenting continues to take on us students.