The CBE isn't allowing in-person learners to move online in the new year

The Calgary Board of Education says Hub online students will still have the option to return to in-person learning at their schools starting on Feb. 1, but students currently doing in-person learning will not be allowed to move online. 

In an update sent to CBE families on Monday, the district says that they will not be accommodating new requests for Hub online learning in the new year. 

That's "in order to ensure continuity of learning and minimize disruption to in-person classes that may arise from the movement of staff from in person to online," reads the update from chief superintendent Christopher Usih.

Kayla Martinez, who is the mother of a boy in Grade 1, says she began the process to switch her son out of in-person learning to Hub a few weeks ago. 

"Basically, [the pandemic] is just getting worse. [At] the schools there is outbreak after outbreak after outbreak," she said.

"I just don't want to put my one-year-old daughter at risk as she has low immunity."

Martinez said she's been grateful that the process hasn't been difficult. 

"They sent me paperwork, which I'm already getting filled out and I have to take a paper for his old school to sign release and there has been no issues at all," she said. 

Martinez said she feels that other parents and guardians should have the same choice to do what they feel is safest and most appropriate for their children.

"You can't say no other families are allowed to register online. They don't know everybody's home life. They don't know the reasons why people may be choosing to pull their children and put them in online schooling," she said. 

"We were basically assuming as a province that things were going to get better and it's just getting worse. The numbers keep rising, so don't take the choice from people."

The district says any Hub families wishing to transition their child back to the classroom must inform the school of their decision before Jan. 8.