Class Sizes Smaller Says Report

By 250 News

The Ministry of Education is reporting positive notes on  class size  in B.C.

According to the third annual report on class size shows more than 95 per cent of classes in school districts throughout B.C. had 30 or fewer students.

In School District 57,  the   average number of  students in classes is as follopws:

• Kindergarten     17.2
• Grades 1-3        19.9
• Grades 4-7        26.5
• Grades 8-12      24.3

When the first class size report was released in 2005-06, there were 9,253 classes around B.C. with more than 30 students. Today that number has dropped to 3,179 - a further decrease from 3,242 classes last year.

Other report findings:

* The number of classes in the province increased by 28 over last year, even though enrolment has dropped by  about 7,000 students this year.
* There are 15,379 classes with assigned education assistants.
* There have been 278 new teaching assistants hired this year, up almost 3.5 per cent from 8,062 last year.
* 15 per cent of all classes have more than four students with special needs, mainly due to more accurate school district reporting methods.

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