Even if the government says it is still considering the issue, it is unlikely that it will choose to abolish the spring break or extend the school year to make up for lost school days, say school administrators. school and parents.
“The most likely option is that the school calendar will not be changed. We have already had strikes and the school calendar had not been,” says Kathleen Legault, president of the Montreal Association of School Directors (AMDES).
“There would be too many complications to do so,” she further observes.
The school days missed since the start of the conflict can now be counted in weeks: it has been more than two weeks since young people whose teachers are affiliated with the Autonomous Education Federation left school, on November 20. It was on this date that schools were closed “for an indefinite period” for approximately 40% of the province’s students.
In the office of the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, it was indicated on Wednesday that we are “still looking at all the options” as to what will happen to the many missed school days. The school calendar provides for 180 school days and 20 educational days.
Although the minister raised the possibility of extending the school year beyond the national holiday, which the law allows him to do until June 30, this would be “unlikely”, we judge at the Quebec Association of School Management Personnel (AQPDE).
“It is also a question of the national calendar: the dates of ministerial examinations have already been determined. Will it take a decree to move this? We cannot do exams at the beginning of June and tell students that we will finish the first week of July. Technically, it’s complicated,” says its president, Carl Ouellet.
Dilapidated schools do not lend themselves very well to an extension of the school year in the summer, also recalls the president of AMDES.
“From May onwards, it gets so hot in our non-air-conditioned schools that we don’t see how one more week at the end of the year would be useful,” explains Kathleen Legault.
And the release?
Cancel March break, then? Many parents have already planned vacations for these dates, recalls Mme Legault. “What good is it for us to have half classes at school? ”, she asks.
Spokesperson for the Regroupement des committees de parents nationaux du Québec, Sylvain Martel recalls that in January 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was talk of canceling this week of vacation.
“It never happened,” he said. Spring break is approved in certain places. Are we really going to conclude an agreement at the national level and go play in local agreements a week later? », asks Mr. Martel. ” Good luck ! », he adds with a laugh.
What’s more, says Mr. Martel, “parents choose their vacation a year in advance” and the economic fallout from this week is significant.
Carl Ouellet, for his part, is not so certain that the March break will be spared, even if, “technically”, it would be complex.
“We will have to find catch-up solutions because it affects our young people in difficulty more, and we will have to look at where they are and how we can compensate for the lack of teaching time,” he said.
But “the simplest thing,” he says, is to eliminate so-called force majeure days (mainly snowstorms) or educational days.
For now, he would just like to be able to talk about it with the Ministry of Education.
“We are waiting for instructions [de Québec] ideally before the holidays and even this week, if it is resolved in the coming days. But we are not consulted, unfortunately for us,” says Carl Ouellet.
Lessons from the pandemic… and the ice!
Schools were closed for extended periods due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and those days were never resumed. The Ministry of Education instead reduced the programs and sent teachers a list of “priority learning” to follow, a regime which ended for this school year.
During the ice crisis of 1998, schools were closed for several weeks and these days were never resumed, remembers the president of AMDES, Kathleen Legault. A document from the Ministry of Education recounts the questions at the time and specifies that exactly 23 days of school were missed. We read that “local school authorities, in concert with teachers’ unions and social partners, sought ways to compensate for lost time without encroaching on spring break; in fact, many families had already planned their vacations and, by all accounts, this break was beneficial for the students”; “ […] adding an hour of class at lunchtime or at the end of the day, eliminating outings or demonstrations, and lightening the program in certain disciplines” are other avenues that had been mentioned.