5 years after COVID-19 led to school closures, Islanders reflect on the lessons learned
'If nothing else, it taught us the importance of contact with other people'
Unlike most high school valedictorians, Brandon MacKinnon gave his graduation speech 11 times.
Each time, there was a different group of Charlottetown Rural High School students and parents in the audience.
When he graduated in 2021, public health measures designed to slow the spread of COVID-19 divided MacKinnon's graduating class into 11 groups — each with its own graduation ceremony to ensure the gatherings were small enough to meet provincial guidelines.
MacKinnon said he had the option to record his speech as a video that could be shown at each ceremony. But he opted to deliver it in-person, so that each of his classmates could see it live.
"Since so much had changed the past year and a half… [I thought] it would be nice for at least my graduating class and myself to have, like, a level of normalcy," he said in an interview this month. "We didn't really get a prom or a dance, so at least they got to see someone speak in front of them instead of a video."
As valedictorian, MacKinnon noted that he "had the privilege of being basically the only student to actually see all of my peers graduate."
As for the pandemic's after-effects, he said: "I feel like it's still lingering now, no matter if you are a student or an adult. Even the younger kids that are still in the school system were affected somehow."
Schools on P.E.I. were shut from mid-March to June in 2020 because of the newly declared pandemic. They re-opened in the fall with public health measures in place, but faced on-again, off-again closures into 2022.
As classes shifted online, the effects of the pandemic on students, teachers and families were felt then, and continue to have an impact today.
On the outside, some schools have now been refit with better ventilation systems to reduce the potential of transmission in some future outbreak.
Behind the scenes, the English-language Public Schools Branch says it has a stronger relationship with public health officials and there's more understanding of the social and emotional aspects of learning.
"It felt sometimes that we were, you know, building the plane as we were flying it," said Dominique Lecours, the PSB's acting assistant director. "But at the same time, everybody put their shoulders to the wheel and we got through it.
"I think that we would be much better prepared if something happens again."
'Online is fine, but it's not a replacement'
The unusual experience of navigating the school system during a pandemic affected Prince Edward Islanders at all stages of education, not to mention their parents.
School sports disappeared overnight. Long-awaited class trips did not happen. No concerts or musicals, no craft fairs, no grad parties — all deemed too risky.
Anne Ives saw first-hand how some of the younger students were affected by the shift to online learning and all the other changes to school life that followed.
Ives is now retired. She was vice principal at Spring Park School in Charlottetown during the pandemic, and later became its principal.
While the shift to online learning was a good opportunity to try out the technology, she said there's no substitute for in-person learning.
In-person learning gives students and teachers the ability to communicate with their faces and body language, which is hard to do through a screen, she said.
"It's tough to really get a feel for what's happening with the kids when they're not [there] in person with you," she said. "If nothing else, it taught us the importance of contact with other people."
At the same time children were being separated from their teachers, they were also separated from each other. For primary school students especially, that blip of not being together ended up affecting their socializing a bit, Ives said.
"They don't have the same experience with getting along with each other and problem solving. They just missed out on that experience of connecting with another person," she said.
"I think we've learned that we really love to be with people — and online is fine, but it's not a replacement."
When students returned to in-person classrooms wearing masks and were split into different cohorts to cut down on mingling that could let a virus spread, there was still a degree of separation. If students weren't in the same class, it became very difficult for them to see their friends, Ives said.
Yet while the return to in-person learning didn't mean going back to life as normal, she said it was welcomed by students, teachers and parents alike.
'It totally made everything fall apart'
P.E.I. had the most in-class learning of all provinces in Canada during the pandemic, said Dr. Heather Morrison, the province's chief public health officer.
But even with more in-class time than other provinces, Islanders felt the effects of school closures, which had a far-reaching impact on their daily lives.
"Elementary schools are very important to the running of society," said Ives. "Parents couldn't work [if] kids can't go to school. It totally made everything fall apart."
It was especially challenging for parents of the youngest students, who weren't able to work independently and needed help setting up technology. We weren't able to start moving forward again until elementary school students were back in class and parents could get back to focusing on their jobs, Ives said.
Many parents were torn, she said: People wanted children to be able to return to school, but they didn't want to put them in an unsafe position.
"I think we did the best we could with what we had," she said. "It was based in science and it was in our best interest."
What's next?
Five years after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, schools are back to in-person learning and public health measures are no longer splitting graduation ceremonies into 11 parts.
MacKinnon, who is now a political science major at UPEI, hopes to graduate next year — this time, under different circumstances.
Thinking back to his high school years, MacKinnon said: "It's such a crucial part of you becoming an adult and kind of understanding who you are, where you want to go, what you want to do."
Under the shadow of the pandemic, that experience was very different for his graduating class. But students like MacKinnon don't want it to shape their futures.
MacKinnon said he still remembers his favourite line from his speech, which came toward the end: "We all will do great things and the setbacks that we have encountered this year do not define who we are or what our accomplishments will be."
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With files from Sheehan Desjardins