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Cornerstone school division finds a way for driver's ed. to continue

It was one of the first questions asked of the South East Cornerstone Public School Division when the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of in school programming in mid-March, said Michael Graham, curriculum co-ordinator for the division.
Cornerstone

It was one of the first questions asked of the South East Cornerstone Public School Division when the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of in school programming in mid-March, said Michael Graham, curriculum co-ordinator for the division.

The question?

What about driver education?

“We didn’t have an immediate answer,” said Graham when speaking online with the Cornerstone board members Wednesday during their regular open business meeting.

“But, we met with the instructors at the four driver training schools, introduced them to Microsoft Teams online service and they can now meet with their students, one-on-one with their instructions, and they are all getting comfortable with the system,” Graham said.

Each instructor can deliver three or four sessions in a class and accommodations are being made for city and rural students in spring and fall classes.

“Within each team, a channel has been created for each class and instructors can assign tasks that are normally completed in class. They are done in a virtual environment and there is room for feedback for students,” Graham said. He added that instructors meet students virtually including small group breakout sessions.

“Once they become familiar with the process, it will work even better and when we get back to normal, we won’t have a backlog of students needing in-class drivers’ education,” Graham added.

Regarding in-car instruction, Graham indicated that the school division, like others in the province, is awaiting direction from SGI on how this may proceed.