English Montreal School Board launching online school for select students

A full-fledged online school is making its way to Quebec for select students in elementary and high school.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity,” said Michael Cohen, spokesperson for the English Montreal School Board (EMSB). “It’s a pilot project, we’re very excited about it.”

Quebec Virtual Academy is a collaboration of all nine English school boards in the province spearheaded by the EMSB. They were recently given the greenlight to start the project by Quebec’s Education Ministry.

Cohen says there has been a need for this kind of program and it would be a first of its kind.

“We learned a lot during COVID and during COVID, it was very necessary to have this type of virtual school,” he said. “Last year, there was another one that was put together. It was done by Learn Quebec, and we collaborated with them, but it was very small in numbers. This one is quite extensive.”

Quebec Virtual Academy is open to students with a long-term medical condition who can’t attend school in-person, but also students in the Sport-étude program or elite athletes.

“They would be able to take advantage of this and be able to link up with their local sports association,” Cohen said. “Then there’s students living in rural areas where sometimes there’s kids that literally are on the bus for an hour and a half or more because it’s so far to get to their school and now they’ll have this option.”

Those with medical conditions will have to show proof when applying.

“They’re going to need to have a note from a medical professional within the last three months, and every medical condition is different, and that note will be evaluated by our team,” Cohen said. “If it’s deemed appropriate, then they’ll be granted entry.”

“If I wanted to have it and if I felt like I needed it,  would have liked to have had the option, and I think there’s a lot of parents who feel the same way,” says parent of two, Edith-Cecilia Varga. “We all have the right to feel comfortable and to feel secure and safe in whatever learning environment that we are in.”

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Students whose family members have medical conditions won’t be able to apply due to the government’s set criteria, unlike when it was possible to do so during the first years of the pandemic.

“Two years ago, there were people, kids who were fine, but they had a they lived with a grandparent or a parent who had an illness, and it’s not our call,” said Cohen. 

“We live with a vulnerable family member and so we were able to get the exemption and we were very thankful for it because  two years ago, like the world was totally different and it was very stressful, we were very worried,” Varga said.

But now the government deems this back to school the safest one yet with COVID vaccinations open to all ages, Varga’s children, 11-year-old Eva-Maria and 13-year-old Joe will go from online learning back to the classroom.

“We’re excited and we feel pretty safe to go back because we all got our vaccines,” said Eva-Maria, starting grade six.

“We’re all safe,” her brother Joe, starting grade eight, echoed. “We feel confident.”

Quebec Virtual Academy is expected to be fully launched by the end of September, with the results of the project evaluated next year. 

Registration for the virtual school is now open at emsb.qc.ca and the deadline for application is September 9. 

“We’re hoping for a good enrollment for this year and we’ll be watching it very closely,” Cohen said. “We hope that we’ll be successful in terms of making this a full time part of our agenda.”