Please support our petition in requesting School District 79 to reconsider keeping the transitional education program providing the only source of education for many children across Cowichan. 

Last week those of us who have children in the School District 79, were informed that the educational program providing children with the ability to learn remotely, was being removed as of December 18th. With this, the teachers who are directing these programs will effectively no longer have the full-time jobs which they had been promised. This is a shock to us all and leaves hundreds of families and teachers combined scrambling, unable to secure a future for the children's education or jobs for teachers. 

THE PROGRAM
The transition program was put in place and teachers were hired (on a full time basis by the school board) to allow parents an option to keep their kids at home while continuing to receive daily remote instruction and keep kids out of schools where they could potentially contract or spread COVID 19. The transitional program was meant to allow parents the ability to decide when they felt comfortable enough to move their child back into the classroom at any point in the year during a natural break. 

THE RESULT
1. Kids will be upended and must start from scratch in a new environment:
     a. More kids in the classroom = larger bubble and more contacts for everyone.
     b.Parent strain - Parents will be required to teach their children without support of online education, potentially creating challenges with jobs schedules.
     c. Blended options - may provide confusing curriculum and are only available for grades 5 and up. 
2.Teachers currently hired will loose their jobs.
3. Other programs that kids will be filtered into will receive a student influx increasing already strained workloads for existing teachers.

None of this is good. 

CHALLENGE
These kids will be displaced into other programs that parents specifically did not choose to put their kids into to for a variety of reason. This decision to transition we, as parents, were promised is no longer our to make. Our hand is now being forced, during a very apparent second wave of the pandemic, to put our kids in class or take time off and teach them ourselves. There is no need for this, a program already exists to combat this. With COVID cases being reported on the Island in Middle schools and high schools causing clusters and a potential high spread situations if this happens in the lower grades (who have no mask policies currently), this program was put in place to address this exact situation. Teachers were hired and took these positions to limit their contact as well and to help drive forward a non-traditional instructional solution that is already a challenge.

Now is NOT the time to remove this program, but instead to ensure it is running smoothly and keeping kids out of the class room and teachers employed.

Please support our position in requesting School Board 79 to keep this essential program running.