New Organizational Model May Be Needed to Comply With Provincial Class Size Requirements

Robert Kirwan, B.A. (Math), M.A. (Education)
Independent Education & Career Development Agent

  
   Two very distinct school boards in the province are causing concern within the Ministry of Education and may in fact be the tipping point to the launch of a new school organizational model.
 
   The Ministry of Education has appointed an advisor to work with the Sudbury Catholic District School Board in order to help the board reduce the size of its primary classes which apparently are the largest in the province.
  
   A Ministry spokesperson Patricia MacNeil, has announced that Wayne Burtnyk will not only help the board lower its class sizes, he will also examine the board’s entire operation in order to come up with ways of making the board more financially viable. The board has been forced to withdraw almost $3 million out of its reserves to balance the books for the past two budget years.
  
   The Ministry’s concern stems from the fact that the Sudbury Catholic District School Board is the worst in the province in terms of meeting the Ministry goal of having at least 90 percent of the primary classrooms in the province with 20 students or less and none more than 23 students. Just 65 percent of the Catholic School Board’s primary classrooms from JK to Grade 3 are meeting the Ministry requirement with 4 percent of the classrooms having more than 23 students.
  
   Interesting enough, a little more than four hundred kilometers to the south, the Toronto District School Board has the second worst primary class size record, with 77 per cent of classrooms under the 20-student mark and two per cent surpassing the 23-student mark.
  
   The Sudbury Catholic District School Board indicates that there are several problems associated with running a school board in
Northeastern Ontario . Rural community schools with low enrolments, dual track French immersion schools, and special education needs make it difficult to control class sizes and balance a budget on the current level of funding.
  
   What is surprising to some is that the second worst board in the province is one of the largest school boards in one of the most densely populated regions of the country. One would expect a world of difference between
Sudbury and Toronto , however, when you get down to the root of the problem, it makes perfect sense to talk about these two seemingly different situations in the same breath.
  
   Understand that this is not merely a financial issue. There is no quick fix in either of these two school boards and there are dozens of other school boards in the province that will find themselves in similar circumstances in the near future.
  
   This is a problem that may only be solved through the creation of a completely new delivery model for small and rural area schools. For example, whether you are a parent living in a subdivision in downtown
Toronto , or you are living in the little Town of Killarney , when it comes to the education of your primary and junior grade level children, you have two similar priorities. You want your children to get the best education available and you want them to attend a school that is contained within your immediate community close to home.
  
   Unfortunately, these two goals are often conflicting within our current system. Changing population patterns in certain geographical pockets of the province are creating situations where there are not enough students to make it feasible to keep a community school open. This means that in order to provide children with a good education and to be fiscally responsible to the board as a whole, some smaller schools must be closed and children bussed to a larger school in a neighbouring community or subdivision. This may at times require a bus ride of up to an hour or more to get and from school. The only difference between
Sudbury and Toronto is the total distance traveled. The time on the bus, which is the most critical element, may be almost the same in either situation. Regardless of where you live, the closing of your community school can be extremely upsetting not only to your children but to your entire family and way of life.
  
   What is happening in the Sudbury Catholic District School Board and the Toronto District School Board may very well result in the creation of a “unified school model” that can be used in small and rural schools in order to make them viable from both a financial and pedagogical point of view. In other words, we may soon see all four school systems operating under one roof in certain areas of the province in order to allow children living in these affected areas to continue to receive their primary and junior grade education close to home, in their community or neighbourhood school.
  
   In order for this to happen, all of the boards and the parents involved will have to agree that the most important consideration for young children is the development of solid learning skills that will enable them to be successful in later grades. Religious and language preferences may have to be put aside for a while in order to allow for the mixing of all Grade one students from the area into the same class in one building instead of splitting them into four distinct schools that must all fight for their very survival. This does not mean that children will be denied their right to the type of education they desire, it just means that they will have one teacher providing a program that is adapted to the needs of everyone in the classroom. With creative planning and organization it will still be possible to develop the desired learning skills and still be able to achieve the most important expectations with respect to language and religious development. The delivery model may have to be different from that to which we are accustomed, and it may require some flexibility with respect to enrolment, budget and collective agreement matters, but it can be done.
  
   Listen closely to the concerns expressed by parents when they attend school board accommodation review meetings. The biggest complaints are that parents want to keep the local school open in their community and they do not want their children to have to travel great distances by bus to attend another school. These two concerns can easily be addressed with the creation of a new school model which would allow all of the students to attend one school together in mixed classes. This would satisfy the desire of parents and municipal leaders to keep a school open in their community. Students would be able to receive their education up to the end of Grade six within their community school and then be shipped off to their respective school board’s closest school when they hit Grade seven.
  
   The Ministry of Education advisor may find that there is not much more that can be done by the administrators and trustees in
Sudbury or Toronto . This is simply the way it is and the way it will continue until a new model has been created and accepted by all parties to address the situation. Perhaps it is significant that Sudbury and Toronto have been the two Cities to bring this issue to the “tipping point”.
  
   Until next time, this is Inside Education…..
  
 

 
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