WESTLOCK – Children born during the COVID-19 pandemic are now entering the school system, and educators are noticing significant struggles among these young learners.
The Pembina Hills School Division (PHSD) has launched a pilot project in collaboration with the Alberta Government, hiring four counsellors to address student mental health issues.
“With these Covid kids some didn’t know how to line up or share, it’s kind of like starting from scratch,” said Trustee Maureen Schnirer during a presentation to Westlock County council on Feb. 11.
“If you think of Covid and 2019-20, those kids are now five and six years old so they are coming into our system and they were born in the pandemic.”
Schnirer added that while the school division is in the “shadows” of the pandemic, they are “seeing a lot of progress.”
During the pandemic, the Alberta government closed schools for 110 days, significantly more than in British Columbia (50 days) and Saskatchewan (75 days), according to the Fraser Institute. Alberta schools were closed on and off from mid 2020 to January 2022 and they say it could take decades to fully understand the impact on Alberta youth.
A September 2024 report by Statistics Canada highlighted the toll of Covid on children’s mental health. The Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY) found that one in five youth who felt their mental health was good in 2019 no longer felt the same way by 2023
The pandemic also led to a significant rise in homeschooling within the local school division.
“The biggest rise in the homeschooling population happened from 2020 until today,” said PHSD Chairperson David Truckey. “Those numbers, after kids were forced home, a lot of them did not come back.”
Currently, approximately 350 students in the division are home schooled.
“We are not going to get them all but if we had 275 [student return] it would boost up our student population quite dramatically," said Truckey.
Trustee Victoria Kane has been advocating for families to re-enrol their children but Truckey said it’s a challenge.
“It’s a tough challenge because those parents and the students, they got into that lane of education and they are pretty happy about things. We try to include them in stuff but we are not funded for them. How much can the community school extend to the home-schooled student? We try to provide resources as best as we can but of course it does come down to funding allocation.”
Despite the rise in homeschooling, overall student enrolment in the division has increased. Truckey said there are now approximately 3,500 students in PHSD schools, reflecting a two per cent annual growth rate.
