5 years after COVID-19 led to school closures, Islanders reflect on the lessons learned

Unlike most high school valedictorians, Brandon MacKinnon gave his graduation speech 11 times.

Each time, there was a different group of Charlottetown Rural High School students and parents in the audience. 

When he graduated in 2021, public health measures designed to slow the spread of COVID-19 divided MacKinnon's graduating class into 11 groups — each with its own graduation ceremony to ensure the gatherings were small enough to meet provincial guidelines. 

MacKinnon said he had the option to record his speech as a video that could be shown at each ceremony. But he opted to deliver it in-person, so that each of his classmates could see it live. 

"Since so much had changed the past year and a half… [I thought] it would be nice for at least my graduating class and myself to have, like, a level of normalcy," he said in an interview this month. "We didn't really get a prom or a dance, so at least they got to see someone speak in front of them instead of a video." 

As valedictorian, MacKinnon noted that he "had the privilege of being basically the only student to actually see all of my peers graduate."

As for the pandemic's after-effects, he said: "I feel like it's still lingering now, no matter if you are a student or an adult. Even the younger kids that are still in the school system were affected somehow." 

Schools on P.E.I. were shut from mid-March to June in 2020 because of the newly declared pandemic. They re-opened in the fall with public health measures in place, but faced on-again, off-again closures into 2022. 

As classes shifted online, the effects of the pandemic on students, teachers and families were felt then, and continue to have an impact today. 

On the outside, some schools have now been refit with better ventilation systems to reduce the potential of transmission in some future outbreak.

Behind the scenes, the English-language Public Schools Branch says it has a stronger relationship with public health officials and there's more understanding of the social and emotional aspects of learning.

"It felt sometimes that we were, you know, building the plane as we were flying it," said Dominique Lecours, the PSB's acting assistant director. "But at the same time, everybody put their shoulders to the wheel and we got through it.

"I think that we would be much better prepared if something happens again."

The unusual experience of navigating the school system during a pandemic affected Prince Edward Islanders at all stages of education, not to mention their parents.