The Praire South School division announced Friday that effective Monday, March 29, all Prairie South School Division schools in Moose Jaw and Caronport will be moving to an online learning format due to the rising COVID-19 variant of concern cases in the area. 

Holy Trinity School Division has announced that classes will be online from Tuesday, March 30 to Thursday, April 1. There will be no school on Monday and Friday is the first day of the long weekend. 

Director of Education with the Prairie South School Division, Tony Baldwin, on why the school division made the move. 

"We've been really worried this week about a pretty significant uptick in cases we've had in our schools. We came to realize that we were really at risk of losing an awful lot of instructional time. We decided that we would be better off losing a little bit of time next week and trying not to lose a pretty significant amount of time in the weeks after Easter." 

Baldwin says after the Prairie South School Division and Holy Trinity met with public health officials on Thursday, they decided this was the best course of action to avoid a severe situation. 

"We've had more cases in the last two days in Moose Jaw and Caronport than we've had in the entire school division the month before that. It's really obvious to us that this variant is so much more transmissible than the COVID we were managing a month ago or six months ago. Once it's in a classroom, it's everywhere." 

 "We certainly recognize that this is going to be a big inconvenience for parents and families,” said Baldwin. “We really appreciate people understanding that we're trying to keep kids and staff safe." 

 Director of Education with Holy Trinity Catholic School Division, Sean Chase, echoed a similar sentiment. 

"We recognize the fluidity of the situation and we are very hopeful that this measure, as well as all of the general compliance from the population in the city of Moose Jaw that things will enable us to be able to head back to school in a face-to-face setting on Monday, April 12. We will remain in close contact with the Saskatchewan Health Authority over the Easter break to make sure that decision is the right one." 

Chase said that Friday would be spent getting everyone prepared for learning from home.   

"Given the information going out to our staff today, they'll have the entirety of the day today (Friday) to just remind and refresh their routines and procedures for 'Level 4' (learning from home) with their students in a face-to-face setting today. Chromebook dispersal has already been taken care of. Those are being packaged up and ready to send home with kids at the end of the day today." 

You can read the full releases from each school division below. 

This letter was also sent to parents in the Holy Trinity Catholic School Division.