It can be difficult to compare class sizes and pupil-teacher ratios in Prairie South School Division (PSSD) due to the population differences in some schools, says one board trustee.
Prairie South School Division has 39 schools located within 19 rural and urban communities and educates more than 8,000 students. The division encompasses 32,747 square kilometres of southern Saskatchewan. It spans a geographic area from Coronach in the south, to Mankota in the west, to Rouleau in the east, and Craik in the north.
Based on division data, there are more classes with fewer than 10 students (151) than there are classes with more than 28 students (63).
The data was presented during PSSD’s Oct. 1 board meeting.
Having this data is important, especially when it comes to talking about pupil-teacher ratios (PTR) at budget time, said Moose Jaw trustee Brian Swanson.
“It’s such an arbitrary number,” he marked.
Swanson used Moose Jaw’s Central Collegiate as an example, pointing out there are five English-related classes with 30 or more students. To discuss this issue intelligently — and to mitigate his concerns — he thought trustees would need to know if the same educator is teaching those five classes; what the teacher’s workload is elsewhere; and if that educator has a spare that semester.
Swanson’s experience has been that it can be difficult to effectively teach writing skills when a class has 32 pupils. He thought those numbers were too high — especially for Grade 12 classes — and thought there was room for improvement at Central and A.E. Peacock collegiate.
“We have a difficult job when a school division has schools with 600 students and schools with 38 students,” he added. “The magic happens in the classroom. That’s where our focus should be.”
According to the data, Central Collegiate has 14 classes with more than 30 students; choir has the highest number of students at 83. Conversely, the school has seven classes with fewer than 10 students.
Cornerstone Christian School has seven classes with more than 29 students; five classes have 38 students. Conversely, the school has two classes with fewer than 10 students.
École Palliser Heights Elementary School has one class with more than 29 students.
Peacock Collegiate has 20 classes with more than 29 students; musical theatre has the most students at 45.
Prince Arthur School has three classes with more than 29 students.
Westmount and William Grayson schools each have one class with more than 29 students.
Riverview Collegiate has four classes with fewer than 10 students.
These numbers are nothing new, said Moose Jaw trustee Lew Young. They have been like this for as long as he has been on the board.
Instead, he thought trustees should focus more on kindergarten teachers and the number of students they have in a day. Young pointed out such teachers could have 24 kids in the morning and 24 kids in the afternoon, which can be stressful.
The board recognizes the disparate class sizes throughout the division between large and small schools, said Shawn Davidson, trustee for subdivision 5. Furthermore, class size does matter at the community level to parents and others.
Davidson thought this report could be a good springboard when discussing staffing formulas in future years.
The next PSSD board meeting is Tuesday, Oct. 22.
