Oakville education centres adjust their programs during pandemic

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The COVID-19 pandemic has hit many businesses and industries, including educational institutions. In addition to public school closures and restrictions, learning centres in Oakville, Ontario, have experienced the effects. 

For OAK Learning Centre, which has been serving students in the Oakville community since 2016, the past eight months have been a critical threat to their programs. 

“We had to close the centre right before March break. We try our best to operate online, but we understand that the effectiveness of online programs isn’t always the same,” says Kane Dai, co-founder and co-owner of the OAK Learning Centre in North Oakville. “It doesn’t compare with in-person enrichment classes. We usually work in small groups, especially in robotics programs. That’s a crucial human element we’re taking away.” 

Dai says OAK Learning Centre is continuing online tutoring at a 30 to 40 percent capacity, but he’s concerned that it won’t be enough to continue on a long-term basis. 

“As a business, we know our community values our services, so we don’t want to close. But with 30 to 40 percent revenue, we’re concerned,” Dai says. “We received a lot of encouraging messages from parents. Students are hoping to return to the centre.”

The centre’s robotics program is one of the most popular ones, according to Dai. He says it provides an opportunity for children to take their focus off screen-only learning and delve into hands-on, strategic thinking that requires collaboration with other students. 

As an alternative, Dai says the centre has considered asking willing parents to buy the robotics supplies so students can have everything they need at home, while teachers guide the robotics lesson online. Still, Dai said it would be a different experience for the kids. 

“We feel that we have to prioritize student and staff safety. Hopefully by first quarter of 2021, we can have a better handle on the situation,” Dai says. “We have 20 Ontario Certified Teachers and a lot of them were concerned. A lot of parents were concerned, so we don’t have a plan to bring students back until we know it’s safe.”

In a similar situation, Andy Kar from MindKraft Education, a North Oakville education centre that specializes in robotics and coding classes for children, wasn’t expecting a wave of lockdowns when he started his business in March of this year. 

“I made the plan to start the business in January. At that time, I didn’t know there would be a possibility of lockdowns,” Kar says. “Our situation completely depends on COVID. It might be a long haul.”

MindKraft set out to offer in-class robotics and coding classes for students between the ages of six and 17. Since opening its doors in March, the centre has held summer programs and continues to host in-class lessons for about 25 students, but Kar says the numbers don’t meet his expectation of what the centre could have been before the pandemic hit. 

“We follow the protocols and our space is quite big. All the desks are placed more than six feet apart. All the kids and instructors wear masks and we do the usual screening. The space is as safe as it can get,” Kar says. “I’m a parent myself and I know a lot of parents aren’t sending their kids to school right now, so they don’t want to take the additional risk of sending them to our programs.”

In the wake of COVID-19, Kar says the centre has moved towards an online track of learning called CodeKraft. These online classes focus on coding without the robotics component, which can’t be done digitally. Currently, there are about 50 students enrolled in this program. 

Kar says MindKraft will keep its physical doors open – despite not being eligible for government-funded support as a business founded in 2020 – but will continue to leverage online solutions while the pandemic persists. 

Much like MindKraft, the PEN Education Centre is a learning facility that has opened its doors at the beginning of this year. 

However, Joe Amato, the managing partner of PEN Education Centre, says their original focus on a technology-rich learning environment has been the bright spot during this pandemic. PEN aims to go beyond basic tutoring and offers a wide range of academic and art-based classes, including digital art, music, computer programming, Math, English, and French, among others. 

Offering K-12 programming, the instructors at PEN Education Centre are Ontario Certified Teachers, while many are even college and university professors. According to Amato, the focus on technology integration was of high priority for the centre before restrictions and lockdowns became the new norm. 

“We were prepared to be online before the pandemic, so almost everything we have is digital. Students can log in and from their student portal, they gain access to a collaborative learning space with exercises, supplemental learning materials, and assignments,” Amato says. “The software even marks assignments so students and parents can watch their grades accumulating just as they would if they were in the classroom. We have thought this through as a twenty-first century classroom before we really needed it.”

Some students are enrolled in programs on a full-time basis, while others attend sessions weekly or bi-weekly. PEN currently has 17 staff and faculty working with students, and Amato says enrolment has steadily increased since the centre's opening. 

There are two options for learning pods at the PEN Education Centre. The first is a directed learning pod, where a teacher will facilitate structured lessons in the classroom, combining the best of both public school and homeschooling. The second pod program option is an alternative for students learning online at home. Every pod hosts a maximum of six students, ensuring consistency that many kids need especially during this time. 

“We want to make sure kids are safe and they are learning. We’ve focused ourselves on helping the parents and the children, and we do our very best to respond to what our parents have requested,” Amato says. 

Although the pandemic has brought unexpected challenges to education centres, and the near future remains unpredictable, Dai, Kar, and Amato say the safety and education of students will continue to be a top priority for their facilities.