The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
A provincial education mandate that takes money and discretion away from the Flin Flon School Division is based on inconclusive research. That's the assessment of Trustee Glenn Smith, who is reaffirming his opposition to class size limits for early grades. 'People keep looking and looking and looking at (research) trying to find evidence that small classes make (for) better teaching,' he said at last week's school board meeting. 'They haven't found any evidence of that. Yet somehow now when the government buys in and says, schools are going to do it, somehow that gives legitimacy to this whole situation (whereas) when they've tried to do it by research, they couldn't really find any evidence of that.' By September 2017, all school divisions in Manitoba must limit the vast majority of kindergarten to Grade 3 classrooms to 20 students each. That will force many divisions to hire more staff and find additional classroom space _ a financial blow only partially softened by extra provincial funding accompanying the mandate. The Flin Flon division is in compliance with the class size limits this year with the help of about an extra $30,000 from the province. That's far below the roughly $160,000 cost of two additional teachers the division could have potentially let go this year if not for the mandate. See 'Teachers' on pg. Continued from pg. However, it's quite possible the division would have kept those two teachers on staff even without the mandate. 'But if forced financially to make some tough decisions, (the mandate) limits what flexibility you have to administer your staff,' said Superintendent of Schools Blaine Veitch. Veitch gave the example of McIsaac, which has two English kindergarten classes _ one with 13 students and the other with 12 students. Those students could have been combined into a single class of 25 and it would have been in line with class sizes of five years ago, he said. Similarly, Veitch said McIsaac's grades 2 and 3 students could have been cut from four classes to three of about 25 pupils each, including one Grade 2/3 split class. 'The counter argument is, do we want to run split classes with 25 kids? Is that good for them?' he said. Trustee Smith would prefer such decisions rest with local school boards rather than provincial legislators. 'It's not fun for somebody to sit in Winnipeg and look at a (class size) number and tell you how to manage your school,' he said. 'We pay administrators a good salary. They have a very good background in education. They could make those decisions much better than somebody in an office in Winnipeg looking at a number...and saying, 'This is what you're going to do.' 'To me that's a silly way to administer anything, so I'm not in favour of it. I don't think it's all that valid, but what are you going to do?' 'Super education' From his own experience as an educator, Trustee Smith said he saw some 'super, super education' taking place in classrooms with as many as 40 students. 'I personally taught classes that were very small occasionally,' he added. 'I didn't like it. It wasn't a very good interaction. I thought it was a detriment, quite honestly, in some cases when the classes were quite small. So it's a way more complex situation than just looking at a (minimum) number. There's all kinds of mixtures of the kinds of students you have in there, what kind of teacher you have.' Numerous studies in various countries have examined the potential benefits of smaller classes, but most experts agree the research is inconclusive. As Lillian Mongeau recently reported on EdSource, a California education website: 'it's unclear what impact _ if any _ smaller class sizes have on student achievement.' Nonetheless, educational groups have long lobbied for smaller classes on the belief they lead to more one-on-one interaction between students and teachers _ and thus a superior learning environment. The Flin Flon division has already made its disappointment over the class size mandate known. Last year trustees voted (though not unanimously) to write a letter to the province outlining their concerns. This past January, Trustee Murray Skeavington took Stan Struthers to task over the mandate when the then-finance minister hosted a public meeting in Flin Flon. Trustee Skeavington said mandates whose costs are not fully covered by the province make trustees 'look like the bad guys' when they must glean the added revenue from local taxpayers. But the province has given no indication it is prepared to back down from the class size limits or offer additional compensation to divisions because of the mandate. In a statement last year, then-education minister Nancy Allan said 'smaller class sizes and investments in teaching contribute significantly to improving student achievement, as students do better when they receive more one-on-one time with their teacher.' While the province's restriction applies to most K-3 classes, there is some wiggle room. Ten per cent of K-3 classrooms within a division will be allowed to have as many as 23 students. When Grade 3 students are combined with students in higher grades, the class size cannot exceed 23 students.
