What’s your plan to address learning loss?
The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development is gathering feedback from educators and partners to assess current learning gaps and how to address them, with additional summer learning opportunities being explored. The current focus is on the return to normal routines and administering of provincial assessments, which will guide interventions and supports.
How much funding is going to the recovery plan and how will it be allocated?
See below.
How are you addressing other student needs?
About $1.9 million is earmarked to increase access to and awareness of early childhood intervention services. After a review, $5.8 million and $2.2 million will go to the anglophone and francophone systems, respectively, to increase inclusive education resources (e.g., speech pathologists, social workers, behaviour intervention mentors, guidance counsellors, resource specialists).
In 2021-2022, New Brunswick spent $2.3 million on mental health initiatives, including integrating mental health into the school curriculum and training for educators in areas such as suicide prevention, trauma-informed practice, non-violent crisis intervention, mental health literacy, etc.
How have you been monitoring the impact on students?
See below.
What assessments have taken place?
Though some assessments were paused during the 2020-2021 school year due to the pandemic, provincial assessments have returned as usual in 2021-2022. This year’s data will be published in fall 2022.
Newfoundland and Labrador
What’s your plan to address learning loss?
In 2020-2021, the Department of Education enacted a curriculum prioritization/core content plan in light of pandemic disruptions to classes.
With federal funding in 2021-2022, the department hired 70 substitute teachers on term contracts, 15 administrators and 25 guidance counsellors. The latter two will be maintained. Since the release of the Education Action Plan in 2018, the department has hired 104 reading specialists, 200 learning assistants, 39 learning resource teachers and 12 English-as-an-additional language teachers.
The province invested $20 million for laptops for teachers, junior high and high school students to allow for online learning both during and after the pandemic.
The department added educators to expand junior high curriculum resources in the Centre for Distance Learning and Innovation.
How much funding is going to the recovery plan and how will it be allocated?
No reply offered.
How are you addressing other student needs?
No reply offered.
How have you been monitoring the impact on students?
Moving forward, the department is working to create a symposium with K-12 and post-secondary stakeholders to discuss the impact on students and to identify solutions.
What assessments have taken place?
Provincial assessments in grades 3, 6 and 9, as well as high school exams, were suspended earlier during the pandemic. There have been no standardized assessments since January 2019. Provincial assessments in reading resumed for grades 3, 6 and 9 in May 2022.
What’s your plan to address learning loss?
The Education Department will monitor student needs using existing wellness data collection, referrals for school-based services and progress reports. That the existing system supports students up to 21 years of age completing their K-12 education could help those who need more time to recover from pandemic-impacted schooling.
How much funding is going to the recovery plan and how will it be allocated?
The department is focusing on enhancing programs and services. It expanded its Northern Distance Learning program to 19 schools during the 2020-2021 year. Also that school year, the Career and Education Adviser program expanded and hired five more advisers. Beginning in January 2022, the territory launched a pilot program to boost training of support assistants.
How are you addressing other student needs?
The department is relying on existing resources to help address challenges, including child and youth care counsellors, career and post-secondary advisers, the territory’s inclusive schooling policy (which includes supports such as accommodations, modifications or individualized programming and plans), the territorial-based classroom reintegration team and the Northern Distance Learning program.
How have you been monitoring the impact on students?
Resuming regular assessments and data collection will inform the department’s understanding of the impact on students, as will its upcoming publication of the 2019-2020 JK-12 Education Performance Measures Technical Report.
What assessments have taken place?
The department is monitoring data, such as early years “on-track” rates, “thriving rates” for grades 4 and 7 students, attendance rates, core subject completion and high school graduation rates, and percentages of students moving on to post-secondary.
NWT also reinstated the Alberta Achievement Tests and Grade 12 diploma exams for June 2022. A survey of the children’s health will be administered in November 2022.
What’s your plan to address learning loss?
Nova Scotia is relying on teachers to adapt and adjust the curriculum to ensure that students meet outcomes, with the support of the regional centres of education and the Department of Education.
How much funding is going to the recovery plan and how will it be allocated?
Federal funding has gone toward additional literacy software to support reading and writing development. Additional teaching resources were added to allow classroom teachers time to implement targeted literacy strategies.
How are you addressing other student needs?
In September 2022, the province will debut a new physical activity framework. Each school has also received the first of an annual healthy living grant to fund outdoor and cultural learning experiences.
How have you been monitoring the impact on students?
The province touts continuous monitoring at the classroom, regional and provincial levels, including looking at grades 1 to 4 and grades 10 to 12 report card trends for English and math to get a sense of possible pandemic impacts on learning. Teachers must respond with targeted interventions for literacy, supported by additional professional development and online resources.
What assessments have taken place?
Nova Scotia reinstated the Grade 6 provincial assessment in literacy and math in fall 2021 and in grades 3 and 8 in spring 2022. Grade 10 provincial exams in English- or French-language arts took place in January 2022 and spring 2022, with Grade 10 provincial exams in math also completed.
Note: We received no response from Nunavut’s Education Department. The information below reflects priorities and guidance offered to educators for the 2021-2022 school year.
What’s your plan to address learning loss?
Nunavut schools operated at rotating capacity levels during the 2021-2022 school year, depending on COVID-19 cases in the community and other factors. However, education officials aimed to mitigate infection risk with the potential harms of long-term school closures on students’ physical and mental health, along with possible learning gaps.
For 2021-2022, the department recommended a recovery learning approach when returning to class after breaks or disruptions, plus attention paid to students’ mental and physical well-being. Core curriculum outcomes for kindergarten through Grade 9 were identified to provide guidance to teachers. Noted priorities included literacy, numeracy and wellness, along with skills development over content-based knowledge.
It also encouraged educators to be guided by Inuit principles, such as Inuuqatigiitsiarniq (respect for every individual as important to the community) and Tunnganarniq (connection through being welcoming and inclusive), in their interactions with students, parents, school community members and each other when navigating emotional well-being.
How much funding is going to the recovery plan and how will it be allocated?
Unknown.
How are you addressing other student needs?
Nunavut emphasized that education support services — such as the oral health program, counselling and wellness programs and school-based occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech language therapy programs — should continue, while following pandemic protocols to reduce risks of transmission. It also encouraged the continuation of food and nutrition programs, physical education classes, sports, outdoor learning and play.
How have you been monitoring the impact on students?
Nunavut recommended to educators that assessment should identify student assets rather than highlight deficits, and involve short interactions to determine next steps or needs in students’ learning. As well, assessment does not need to involve formalized tests or measures. Formative (ongoing) assessments were also recommended.
What assessments have taken place?
See above.
Note: We received no response from Ontario’s Education Ministry. A provincial election campaign began May 4, with the Progressive Conservative Party re-elected on June 2. The information below reflects education funding the government had earlier pledged for 2022-2023 and its learning recovery plan, announced in February 2022.
What’s your plan to address learning loss?
Ontario’s plan aims to address pandemic impacts on students with investment in four areas: assessment, tutoring, resilience and mental well-being, and numeracy and literacy.
How much funding is going to the recovery plan and how will it be allocated?
In February 2022, the ministry announced $176 million to expand tutoring supports, with $175 million for school boards’ immediate use to implement programs through December 2022. Mandated to be in place by April 1, 2022, these programs could be during, before or after school hours, and occur during summer and/or offered by local organizations. Funding was also pledged to expand online math and reading tutoring services from Mathify and Eureka.
The ministry announced an additional $10 million for student resilience and mental well-being, with a plan to launch consultations in summer 2022 to develop a provincewide student mental health strategy alongside the Ministry of Health. Of this funding, $5 million was allocated for evidence-based programs and resources.
Ontario pledged $40 million to learning supports in math and reading, including $25 million for reading assessment and intervention programs for struggling readers. It planned to expand existing summer learning programs with $10 million for students with special needs, $130,000 for provincial and demonstration schools and $5 million for programs by third parties. School board summer learning programs for First Nation students living on reserve were to receive $120,000 for 2022 and 2023, with Eureka to get $100,000 to develop French-language virtual summer programming.
How are you addressing other student needs?
Mental health components of the recovery plan include looking at mandatory professional development on mental health and exploring a potential graduation requirement on resilience and mental well-being.
The ministry also announced a time-limited staffing support fund of $304 million. This would go toward hiring teachers, early childhood educators and other workers to address learning recovery plus staff to implement de-streamed Grade 9, special education needs, remote learning (a required option for the 2022-2023 school year) and enhanced cleaning.
Learning recovery was also flagged as a priority area for Ontario’s three mandatory professional activity days for educators during the next school year.
How have you been monitoring the impact on students?
Unknown.
What assessments have taken place?
After pausing during the pandemic, Ontario planned to resume grades 3 and 6 EQAO provincial testing in spring 2022. The results were expected in fall 2022, when the ministry aimed to engage education officials, teaching experts and at-risk communities to identify interventions and set targets for improvement.