Waterloo region's public school board won't move PD day to coincide with eclipse
CBC
The Waterloo Region District School Board will not be moving its April professional development day to coincide with a solar eclipse.
Other school boards locally and across the province have opted to make April 8 a PD day.
The public board's professional development (PD) day will remain on April 10. That day was chosen specifically because it gives students who celebrate Eid the day off.
"This will be the first total eclipse since 1925 and another one won't be visible in the area again until 2144. WRDSB staff are already planning to make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunity," the school board said in a post on its website Wednesday afternoon.
"As a publicly funded educational institution, we will be providing valuable education for the students we serve on April 8, as we do every school day."
The board said it took into consideration the decisions of other school boards as well as other factors including student safety and the impact on families who would require child care or who would have to adjust their schedules.
The board says parents are welcome to take their children out of school for the day or pick them up early if they feel it's necessary.
The school board says parents and caregivers should talk to students about the importance of not looking directly at an eclipse because it can damage their eyes.
Other local school boards have opted to move their PD day to April 8, including:
The French-language boards Conseil scolaire Viamonde and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir have planned for students to learn from home asynchronously on April 8.
LISTEN | With a solar eclipse on the way in April, University of Guelph's Orbax offers tips to prepare to look at it safely:
In making its decision, the Waterloo Catholic board trustees reviewed a report from director of education Tyrone Dowling in which he noted the eclipse is set to occur in Waterloo region at about 3:18 p.m., "at a time when the majority of our students will be travelling home."
This is a safety concern, he said.
"In addition to these health risks, a period of darkness will occur which will present additional challenges to students during dismissal time," Dowling's report said.
More Alberta seniors are now eligible for a provincially funded RSV vaccine.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.
Premier Susan Holt is defending her decision to not use electricity exports to Maine as leverage against U.S. tariffs, arguing the move might cause long-term pain for New Brunswickers.