What's high school without the extracurriculars? Toronto students are about to find out

On a brisk September afternoon, Zechariah Dereje and Joel Boadi-Boateng are putting up shots and playing one-on-one on an outdoor basketball court at a Toronto Community Housing high-rise building near Jane and Finch.

In an ordinary year, they'd have been getting ready for the coming high school basketball season, with hopes of making a run to the playoffs to punctuate their last year of high school.

Instead, the gym at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute is off limits, and the school's sports teams are on an indefinite hiatus.

"It's really frustrating because all your four years of high school, you work really hard to get where you want to go for post-secondary, and for COVID to come through and crush everything, it sucks," said Dereje, who plays centre for the senior team.

"We were trying to make the playoffs, trying to go far, trying to show our worth and [the worth] of this community," added Boadi-Boateng, who also hoped a strong season might help him land a college or university athletic scholarship.

"I feel like basketball could be a way for me, especially money-wise when it comes to tuition."

But the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has put organized sports and extracurricular activities on hold to start the school year, though it says individual schools can explore options to resume some activities if they conform to provincial guidelines."

The board's current plan will also see schools close after lunch every day, when most students will be sent home to learn remotely.

'Did I have fun?'

The tightened restrictions are in place to help prevent COVID-19 outbreaks when students head back to class next week, but for those heading into Grade 12, the loss of extracurriculars will have a profound effect on their high school experience.

"A big part of school is the extracurricular activities," said Mays Saifan, a Grade 12 student at L'Amoreaux Collegiate Institute and a TDSB student trustee.

"You can go to school, you can study, but you're going to come home and think, 'Did I have fun? Did I enjoy it?'"

Like many graduating students, Saifan had been counting on extracurriculars to bolster her university applications. With the status of sports teams and clubs now up in the air, she's unsure about how she'll reflect on her last year of high school.

"Some of them [ask] 'What did you learn from your high school experience?' It's kind of hard to talk about that without talking about extracurriculars that you did," she said.

A 'mixed bag' of approaches across Ontario

Ontario's school reopening guidelines say schools are permitted to offer clubs and organized sports, though only "if physical distancing is possible and equipment and spaces are cleaned and disinfected between each use."

The union representing Ontario's high school teachers says school boards across the province are taking "multiple approaches" as a result of those directions, meaning students' access to extracurricular activities may depend on where they live.

"It's very much a mixed bag," said Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation.

Bischof said some boards, like the TDSB, have ruled out extracurricular activities to start the year, while others might still host clubs and allow sports that allow for greater physical distancing, such as golf and tennis.

Whether teachers will be willing to oversee those activities is another question. Teachers are not obligated to participate, and Bischof said concerns around contracting the virus may push some educators to take a year off from coaching or organizing clubs.

"Lots of them love doing extracurriculars; it's one of the highlights of their work with students, but I'm sure there will be a fair bit of trepidation around adding to their contacts," he said.

Can some clubs function online?

While the prospect of resuming extracurricular activities involving contact sports seems doubtful, other school clubs may be able to continue online.

Firdaus Shallo, a Grade 12 student at C.W. Jefferys C.I. and TDSB student trustee, said some clubs had success moving to an online-only format when schools were closed in March, though she worries that others will be more difficult to run virtually.

Shallo helps run a mental health and student outreach program at her school called Smile Warriors, which she fears will be among the clubs that will suffer from a lack of in-person interaction.

"It changes up everything and it changes up all the plans that I had," she said. "But this year's not going to be normal for anyone."

Saifan listed theatre clubs as another likely casualty of what figures to be a largely virtual school year. She said she still feels the sting of a cancelled theatre trip in the spring.

"There are clubs that you can do online. And then there are clubs that you just can't do online," she said.