COVID-19 Pandemic Updates

June 10, 2020

For those of you who may not have seen the government news release, this announcement was distributed by the Government of Saskatchewan regarding school resuming in the fall.

Students And Staff To Return To Class For The 2020-21 School Year, Guidelines To Be Released As Early As Next Week

https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/news-and-media/2020/june/09/school-year

Next week, we will have an opportunity to study the forthcoming guidelines. Once we have those, we can determine what our school and classroom operations will look like. We don’t have enough details at this point. We will let you know as soon as we have studied the guidelines what this announcement means for our students.

-Mark Anderson, Principal

April 22, 2020

Here are a few details on the Prime Minister's announcement regarding federal measures to support students during the COVID-19 pandemic:

The creation of the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB)

Eligible high school graduates, post-secondary students, including those set to begin their studies and recent post-secondary graduates can apply for a benefit of $1,250/month over the summer period (May to August). Graduates must have completed their studies from December 2019 onward in order to be eligible for the benefit.
Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be able to apply for the CESB.
Students and recent graduates with dependents or with disabilities will be eligible for an additional $500/month.
Students can earn up to $1,000/month over the summer through work and still be eligible for the CESB.
Part-time students will be eligible for the CESB, although their eligibility may depend on other factors (e.g. a part-time student in work may already be eligible for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit).
We understand students will have to complete an attestation indicating that they had planned to work on a full-time or part-time basis and that this work is no longer available.
We also understand that like other emergency benefits, providing support for Canadians during the pandemic, CSEB recipients will need to reapply every four weeks.

Changes to the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP)

Students will be able to access additional loans and grants through the program. Low income grants will be doubled to $6,000 per academic year, weekly maximum student loan levels will increase from $210 to $350, and student and spousal contribution limits will be removed to reflect the loss of personal and family income during the pandemic.
For Quebec, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, the federal government will provide funds to provincial and territorial governments to expand their own student financial assistance programs.

Support for work placements, youth employment and student/youth volunteers

The federal government will expand skills development and youth programming measures to create up to 116,000 jobs, placements and other employment opportunities for students, which is an additional 76,000 opportunities to those previously announced as part of the Canada Summer Jobs program. Some of these opportunities will be focused on frontline sectors including health, agriculture, food processing, transportation and retail.
The Canada Student Service Grant has also been created to support students and youth in volunteer placements. Applicants will be eligible for up to $5,000 in funding for their education in the fall.

Indigenous student supports

$75.2 million has been allocated to increase existing distinctions-based support First Nations, Métis and Inuit students pursuing post-secondary education.

Further details on these measures are available on the Prime Minister’s website.

April 7, 2020

Covid-19 and isolation: if you or a family member or friend are struggling with anxiety related to Covid-19, please consider accessing the resources posted on the Wellness Day Google Classroom. Anxiety is a common experience for many of us right now and there are a lot of helpful resources that can assist us in coping with this new experience.

Mr. Belous and Mrs. Wilkinson are also offering personal remote counselling to our students. Read more here.

March 31, 2020

ESL Program Updates:

March 31, 2020

March 20, 2020

March 27, 2020

Dear Luther College Students and Families:

I hope you are doing as well as possible in these unprecedented and unsettling times. Please know we are thinking of each and every one of you, and praying for the well-being of all those in our Luther community.

The provincial government has released its most recent education directives. These directives strike a nice balance between the government’s need to protect public health and Luther’s desire to provide continuing education opportunities for its students. I want to stress that Luther faculty, support staff and administration were prepared to begin offering online learning well over a week ago, but those plans had to be put on hold while the provincial government understandably took some time to develop its response plans.

The great news is we have official approval to start offering online learning as early as next week. This supplementary learning will be optional for students. Having said that, we want to stress here the importance of students choosing supplementary learning even though the upgrade in their marks might be minimal. It is critically important that students learn the content and skills from all their courses so that they continue their success next year. This experience of online learning will not just help them to complete their studies this year but position them well for next year.

Next week:

Monday, March 30 will be a day for teachers to finalize online teaching plans given the Ministry directives and test their equipment remotely;
Tuesday, March 31, teachers will reach out to their students in their regular class time for ten minutes on Google Classroom and/or Zoom to ensure that everything is working, to iron out initial glitches, and to reconnect with students;
Wednesday, April 1, teachers will start delivering online classes with the following general parameters.
Students will be informed by Tuesday or Wednesday morning of next week through OSA what their grade was in each class before the school closure occurred so that they can decide whether or not they will participate in supplementary online learning.

Assessment: We will not be running midterm exams. We understand that our students who wish to continue with supplemental learning are doing so because they want to increase their mark and/or because they want to be prepared for next year. We assure you that participation in online learning cannot reduce a student’s grade from where it was when schools were asked to close.

Our online classes will focus on the learning (critical skills and content) that students will need for next year whether in their next grade at Luther or in post-secondary education (i.e. university or polytech). Teachers will communicate clearly and frequently with students about assessment. Some subjects will lend themselves to a few major assignments and some subjects to smaller daily checks.

Course Delivery: We will follow our existing semester two timetable. As a general rule, teachers will offer students a minimum of two and a maximum of three Zoom teaching sessions per week. In addition, teachers will be hosting office hours for tutorial support though these are optional for students who want extra help.Teachers will hold these office hours in the regularly scheduled time slot for the class when they are not teaching the class.This is our recommendation to teachers as we do not want students to feel compelled to sit at their computers six hours a day, five days a week. Teachers will try to record or prerecord as many lessons or directed teaching sessions as possible so that if a student is sick or away, he/she is able to catch up. Students may choose to work on their units or modules of studies at different rates. Deadlines are useful in promoting the completion of work but teachers will be mindful of flexibility as we adjust to the new learning environment.

General School Information:

The school will remain closed to the public.
The main office, alumni/development and admissions phones will continue to be answered remotely; essential questions will be directed to the appropriate administrator; dorm students will be well-served for as long as they choose to remain in our care.
Not all of the above teaching and assessment directives apply to ESL. Specifics for that critical programming will be communicated in a separate e-mail later.
Although student attendance cannot be tracked through our usual means in OSA, all teachers will keep records as to which students are participating in supplementary learning and the status of the completion of their work.
For classes in which students are required to have access to materials (like art or band, for example), teachers will arrange times for students to pick up those materials while still adhering to all physical distancing and pandemic protocols.
“All College” and any other school events scheduled between now and the May long weekend are postponed or cancelled. Please be aware that there is a good chance that later May and June events will also be rescheduled or cancelled. We are still working on when and how we can recognize the success of our grade 12 graduates.
Easter vacation will still be observed from Good Friday, April 10 to April 19 inclusive.
IB classes normally finish within the first two weeks of May. We plan to observe those timelines unless we hear otherwise from IB authorities.

We know this information does not begin to cover the innumerable details that will inevitably arise as we engage in this new mode of teaching and support services. Please don’t hesitate to email administration or your child’s teacher if you need clarification on anything.

Finally, we understand that this is a very uncertain and unsettling time. For many, there is the added burden of financial stress. We understand that and are sympathetic to this. If your family has payments yet to make on this year’s tuition or is worried about next year’s tuition, please contact our main office (306-791-9150 or lutherhs@luthercollege.edu) as soon as possible so we can consider options with you regarding financial aid, deferred payments, etc.

Thank you all for your patience and support as we strive to achieve a quality education for your children during these extraordinary circumstances.

Health and peace to you and your families,

Dr. Mark Anderson, Principal

March 18, 5:00 p.m.

Information for Dorm Students during the pandemic

March 18, 3:30 p.m.

Luther College High School will be operating essential services only effective Friday, March 20 to Friday, March 27, 2020. All our staff are being directed to stay home and no one is being allowed on campus except our dorm students and our staff serving them. This is a directive from the Ministry of Education as a measure to protect public health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What this means for our families and students:

• If you have not yet cleaned out your locker, or have left other belongings on campus, you will be given further instruction as to when we can clean them out. Your lockers are locked and secure in the meantime.

• There will be no assignments or online learning during the week of March 20-27, 2020. Teachers will be following up with students on Google Classroom before Friday, March 20 about any assignments or remaining questions.

• Course request forms for 2020-2021 are due before March 31, submitted via email to lutherhs@luthercollege.edu. Please do not drop them off in the office during the week of March 20-27 as the office will be closed to the public.

• The dorms will remain open and all services will be in place to keep them safe and comfortable, including dorm staff, the nurse, cafeteria and maintenance staff.

Our staff and faculty will be getting established to work remotely effective Monday, March 30.

Again, we are prepared to continue to offer a revised form of our Luther College curriculum online and are in the process of investigating how and when that can start. Those decisions will not be made until after March 27, at the earliest, as we await permission and directives from the Ministry.

We want to make sure our Luther community is taking every preventative step possible to prevent the spread or risk of COVID-19. We will continue to update you as decisions are made regarding our operations during this unprecedented time.

Please stay healthy. You are all a part of Luther College; we are praying for you and our entire community.

March 17, 3:30 p.m.

Since suspension of classes, there have been a number of questions about fees, particularly with respect to the upcoming deadline of Friday, March 20 for tuition deposits for 2020-2021 for next year.

We are extending the deadline for payment of tuition deposit to Friday, May 1. This deposit is applied against tuition for the 2020-2021 school year. Payment is accepted via cheque or credit card; please use the attached form. Deposits are fully refundable with written notice of a student’s withdrawal prior to Monday, June 1.

We also have a new deadline for Saskatchewan students returning their completed course request forms; it is now Friday, March 31. Please forward your course request forms to lutherhs@luthercollege.edu. Returning non-Saskatchewan students must submit their course request form and are required to pay their full fees prior to their classes being registered.

Program fees: There have also been a number of questions about other fees. Bus plans, cafeteria meal plans and special course fees (such as film and phys. ed) will be prorated to March 17 and refunded to your student(s) account within 4-6 weeks. If your student is in grade 12, a refund cheque will be issued to you for these amounts. We need a little time to do the calculations on these amounts. If you have questions about refunds and fees, please email our Financial Services Officer.

IB fees: IB courses are nearly completed so no refunds will be issued. We are currently working with the IB authorities to ensure a smooth completion of the program and course requirements for all our IB students. IB has already extended a variety of accommodations to all schools affected by closures, and they will continue to work with us to help our students. Almost all internal assessments have been completed, so school cancellations will not affect those grades.

Regarding IB exams, we think that IB has given us enough flexibility in terms of supervision, locations, and spacing that we will be able to have them proceed safely as planned. However, there is no way for us to make a final decision on how and if IB exams will proceed at Luther until much closer to the start date of May 5. Questions can be directed to our IB Coordinator Derek Frostad.

Grad fees: Thank you to those who have submitted payment. We are pausing graduation planning and ask that you do not make assumptions about any Luther College High School grad events until the school officially makes a decision.We are holding all cash and not depositing cheques until a decision can be made.

We will be following the Ministry guidelines; face-to-face classes will be suspended until the end of the academic year, students will all receive a passing grade and students will not receive grades lower than those already assigned. However, we are also prepared to continue to offer a revised form of our Luther College curriculum on-line and are in the process of investigating how and when that can start. We will get back to you as soon as we have more information about this.

We would also ask all our parents and students to come to us if they have any questions about our procedures or plans. You may have a question we haven’t yet considered, and also, we would appreciate the opportunity to answer your questions directly. Rumors and speculation online (or in person) only add to the uncertainty during these times. We will always have the official facts and information on our website www.luthercollege.edu/highschool and shared on our official Facebook page @LCHSRegina, or Instagram @luther_college_hs.

In the meantime, please practice social distancing, and stay up-to-date on the pandemic at www.saskatchewan.ca/coronavirus.ca. This website also includes a useful health self-assessment tool.

March 16, 5:00 p.m.

This morning the provincial government announced that “due to COVID-19, classes in pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 will be suspended indefinitely, starting Friday, March 20, 2020.”

Most schools and school divisions will use this week to wind down in-school teaching, assign final grades, and begin planning for optional supplementary distance education.

We at Luther College are considering all our options for our students. We have many considerations: first and foremost, the health of all our students, including our dorm students; our concern for excellence in education; and our IB students and their programs. We are prepared to continue our courses on-line but need to consider all the ramifications of that decision before proceeding.

We intend to hold a normal school day tomorrow (Tuesday, March 17) so that teachers can have one last person-to-person class with their students, and then suspend all in-school classes beginning Wednesday, March 18.

If you have any concerns about your son or daughter attending school tomorrow, please feel free to inform our office and keep them home. To our international students and families – our dorms will remain open. There are travel restrictions and public health restrictions that we will continue to encourage you to follow. You can stay up-to-date on those by visiting www.saskatchewan.ca/coronavirus.

The suspension of classes will be indefinite, but no matter the time frame, and no matter the form of online learning provided, Luther College is committed to ensuring all students will have final marks for all second semester classes.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact our pincipal, Dr. Mark Anderson. Given the situation, e-mail is probably the most effective means to do so (principal@luthercollege.edu).

The Luther College administration thanks you for your patience and flexibility as we all try to do what is best for our students, both in their health and education needs. We look forward to working together as a community as we work through these challenging times.

March 16, 2020 - noon

This morning the provincial government announced that “due to COVID-19, classes in pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 will be suspended indefinitely, starting Friday, March 20, 2020.”

We have a teleconference with the provincial government at 1:15 today. Once that conversation concludes, we will send you a fuller e-mail tonight outlining Luther College’s plans.

Thank you in advance for your patience.