Table of contents

Overview

All remaining mandatory public health measures were lifted on June 14, 2022.

A variety of programs and services are in place to help students experiencing academic and mental health challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Funding for targeted programming

2022-23 school year

We are providing an additional $10 million this school year to help address classroom complexities in Grade 1 and help ensure students develop foundational literacy and numeracy skills.

Government has already provided $10 million in 2022-23 to help students in Grades 2 to 4 get back on track after pandemic-related learning disruptions. This is an extension of the 2021-22 funding.

This funding will benefit thousands of students across the province by helping schools hire more staff and buy the learning resources they need to support their learners.

In addition to this new funding, the Child and Youth Well-Being Review explored ways to best support the well-being of children and youth impacted by COVID-19.

2021-22 school year

We provided up to $45 million during the 2021-22 school year to support Grade 1 to 3 students who fell behind during the pandemic. School authorities had the flexibility to use this funding to design literacy and numeracy programming interventions to best meet the needs of their students. This programming supported students above and beyond the classroom curriculum.

Approximately $30 million was invested in fall 2021 for students in Grades 2 and 3. Up to $15 million was allocated to school authorities for students in Grade 1 in February 2022. This funding helped more than 70,000 students in Grades 1 to 3 regain an average of 5 to 8 months of learning.

Specialized assessments

We will provide up to $10 million per year for 2022-23 and 2023-24 to support increased access to specialized assessments.

This includes funding to ensure children and students, who may not have had access to specialized assessments during the pandemic, can be assessed by qualified professionals including speech language pathologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists or psychologists.

Supporting mental health

  • Parents are encouraged to talk to their children about how they are feeling, and let them know they are there for them.
  • If a child needs someone to talk to, they can text CONNECT to the Kids’ Help Phone at 686868 or call 1-800-668-6868. This 24/7, free service offers professional counselling, information and referrals. The Jack.org Alberta COVID-19 Youth Mental Health Resource Hub also has great information for teens on mental health, self-care and supporting others.
  • If a parent, school staff member or other adult needs someone to talk to, they are encouraged to call the confidential, toll-free, 24/7 mental health helpline at 1-877-303-2642. This helpline is attended by a team that includes nurses, psychologists and social workers.
  • The Alberta Health Services website Help in Tough Times also has helpful information, including the Text4Hope resource, which you can subscribe to for free by texting COVID19HOPE to 393939. It offers 3 months of supportive text messages written by mental health therapists.
  • We are allocating up to $50 million to support mental health pilot projects that will explore new and innovative approaches to providing supports and services including counselling, social and emotional learning, student assessment and training for school staff.

Online tutoring services

The e-Tutoring Hub will help students catch up on important skills and learning they may have fallen behind on due to the pandemic. It launched on January 11, 2022 with free, pre-recorded video tutoring sessions for students in Grades 4 to 9 to strengthen their literacy and numeracy skills.

The free online tutoring resources will be expanded to cover more grades and subjects, including live tutoring. Feedback from school authorities, parents and students will be used to help inform the topics for new tutoring sessions.

Online tutoring sessions on the e-Tutoring Hub will be:

  • free, with unlimited access for all students, parents and school staff
  • up to 15 minutes in length for younger students and up to 60 minutes for older students
  • offered live during the school day, late afternoons and evenings to meet the needs of students and their families
  • designed and delivered to protect individual privacy
  • available 24-7 as recorded videos
  • developed by Alberta certificated teachers working at Alberta Education

Find out more and view tutoring resources on the e-Tutoring Hub at new LearnAlberta.

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