“Jason Ellis, a University of B.C. professor, called the ministry’s plan “ambitious” and noted it is important that kids can safely return to classrooms.
“For their own learning to be interrupted for so long will have long-term consequences. And it’s vitally important to them socially because school is where they interact with their peers,” he said.
Ellis does have some questions, although he didn’t think finding answers will be insurmountable, including: How will elementary teachers’ daily prep times be affected by the 60-person bubbles? And the current plan seems to assume that most parents will send their kids back to school in September, and does not seem to contemplate hiring additional distributed learning teachers.”
See article here: https://vancouversun.com/news/parents-teachers-academics-react-to-schools-re-opening-in-september
Update August 13th, 2020 – Dr. Jason Ellis has a new opinion piece on Vancouver Sun regarding class sizes and Covid-19: https://vancouversun.com/opinion/jason-ellis-reducing-class-sizes-during-covid-19-easier-said-than-done
