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Class Size To Be Watched Closely

By 250 News

Just as the teachers start their job action  to back their contract demands, (including one to reduce class sizes)  The Minister of Education, Shirley Bond has announced  School Districts will be under the microscope to ensure they  are  doing the right things when it comes to class sizes.

“Our government made an election commitment to require public schools to report annually on their class sizes – and we are fulfilling that commitment,” said Bond. “Beginning this year, class-size data for each class in every school will be included in annual district accountability contracts and reported publicly.” 

The School Districts are required by legislation to submit an annual accountability contract to the Ministry of Education, outlining their work to improve student achievement. 

Districts collect information related to student achievement, analyze the data, develop and implement plans for improvement, review the results and communicate with the public.

Districts will now be required to report on individual class sizes for each grade level on a school-by-school and district-by-district basis to ensure they are complying with the legislation. The information will also be available on the AchieveBC website, under the school profile tool.

“Parents told us class size is important and that they want to be able to see the size of classes in their child’s school and how those compare with other schools in their district and around the province,” said Bond. “We agree. This new reporting requirement will make class sizes more transparent and ensure districts are accountable.”

By law,  primary classes cannot exceed 22 students for kindergarten and 24 students in grades 1 to 3. District-wide class size averages are restricted to 19 students in kindergarten, 21 students in grades 1 to 3 and 30 students in grades 4 to 12.

The actual enrollment numbers for all school districts will be taken tomorrow.  The information will be sent to the Ministry, where it will be double checking to make sure there's no double enrollments.  The final figures should be known by the end of the following week.  Those numbers form the basis of funding for each and every school district.


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