The Flin Flon School Division continues to meet class-size limits well ahead of schedule.
By September 2017, all divisions in Manitoba must restrict the vast majority of kindergarten to Grade 3 classrooms to 20 students.
While the mandate won’t take effect for another three years, Flin Flon is in full compliance at both École McIsaac School and Ruth Betts Community School.
“I think having the expectation of maintaining the small numbers has encouraged us to minimize the number of split classes we’ve had, and I think that’s good for students,” said Superintendent of Schools Blaine Veitch. “It’s easier to have classes of all the same grade and, you know, a better learning situation for children, so we’re able to accommodate that.”
Classes
McIsaac has three kindergarten classes ranging from 15 to 19 students each. At Ruth Betts, there are two kindergarten classes, each with 13 students.
At the Grade 1 level, McIsaac has three classes with 15 to 17 students each while Ruth Betts has two classes that both have 14 students.
In Grade 3, McIsaac has two classes, one with 19 students and the other with 20, as well as a Grade 3/4 split class with 19 students. Ruth Betts has one Grade 3 class with 18 students.
But the class-size restrictions, mandated by the NDP government, have not been welcomed with open arms by Flin Flon school trustees.
In 2012, the board voted to write a letter to the province outlining its concerns with the caps.
By choosing to comply with the caps that year, the board was forced to reject parental requests to have six students attend McIsaac instead of Ruth Betts.
Such refusals, then-trustee Glenn Smith said at the time, “could be a regular occurrence” due to the new restriction.
Smith questioned why a maximum of 20 students is “somehow a magical number that’s different from 21.”
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.
