Class sizes

A decision last week by the Rainy River District School Board to slightly increase secondary school classroom sizes was a precaution if enrolment should rise, board administration said this week.
As reported in last Wednesday’s Times, trustees voted at a special meeting to increase its secondary school class size from the current 21:1 student-teacher ratio to 21.09:1, or an average of 1/10th of a student more per class.
“The Ministry of Education made it optional for school boards to pass a motion making class size one student larger than the mandated average,” Superintendent of Education Terry Ellwood said Monday.
“Our board was only slightly above the mandated average of 21 [last year] and we wanted to make sure that we applied all the necessary legal applications,” he added.
“Last year, we were .09 over the 21 [student class average] and legally should have passed the motion,” noted Education Director Warren Hoshizaki, adding that was the reason the board specifically allowed for the .09 increase.
“Most of the boards [in the province] have passed a motion allowing the school average to be 22 students in secondary classes and the ministry allowed that,” he remarked.
Ellwood said the projected average classroom size for the coming year is less than 21 students per teacher, but that the motion was more a precaution if enrolment should go up.
Fort High principal Ian Simpson said students at his school shouldn’t notice any changes in class size this fall since the number of classes and class sizes were determined last spring.
“We don’t have to change anything because of that motion,” he said. “It has no effect on our class size.”
Simpson said Fort High did operate, on average, slightly above the 21 student per teacher ratio, but added there were limits enforced on how big classrooms can get due to contracts with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.
“The biggest class we have is 32 and that would be an advanced class,” he explained. “Other boards have bigger classes than that.”
There was concern the so-called double cohort—students in OAC and Grade 12 moving on to college and university at the same time next fall—might cause havoc with class size.
“[The double cohort] has caused concern but it hasn’t created a problem in class size,” Simpson said, adding more OAC and university preparatory classes are being offered at Fort High this year than ever before.
The school has taken teacher time away from non-classroom areas, such as guidance and co-operative education or alternative education programs to make these additional courses available, but Simpson said they tried to ensure there was a balance and that the support network students depend on was still available.