WINDSOR, ONT. -- The St. Clair Catholic District School Board has appointed a project coordinator to develop a plan for kids to head back to school in September.

Bob Crawford, the former Chief of Fire and Paramedic Services for Chatham-Kent was announced Tuesday as the project coordinator for the school board. He was also the general manager of community development for the municipality from 2012 to 2017 and has more than 40 years of experience in emergency services.

“What he is doing right now is serving a number of stakeholders for us and with those surveys he’s going to highlight the risks involved and try to address the risks in a proactive manner," said associate director, corporate services and treasurer Amy Janssens. "We are really at the early stages of the project, but he has already started his work and he has been very diligent about kicking this off on the right foot.”

Crawford most recently led a project to develop an emergency field hospital for the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“He is really skilled at coordinating," Janssens said. "We have so many talented staff at our school board, but what we were looking for is someone to coordinate us in the project and lead us to a project plan that would help us open our schools in September."

Janssens said the board is looking at a number of models from different provinces and around the world to build a plan for September. She said it could include a mix of online and in class school, or smaller class sizes, but things are changing on a daily basis.

“There’s lots of different models we are looking at and taking the feedback from our stakeholders to see what’s going to be best for the students and for the staff in a very healthy and safe manner,” she said.

Brenda Courey, former assistant superintendent of education, who retired from the board in 2015 after 18 years of service has also been hired to assist Crawford.

Contracts for both Courey and Crawford will conclude on Sept. 5, 2020. Crawford is planning to complete the project by August, giving the board time to train staff, students and communicate with families. 

“Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our students, families and staff as we begin to plan for the return to school in September,” chair of the board, John Van Heck, said in a news release. “The importance of this project cannot be over-stated and we believe that Bob is the best qualified candidate to lead it for us.”

With files from CTV Windsor's Alana Hadadean.