Teachers' union unhappy with B.C. class-size regulations

VANCOUVER ? B.C. teachers who have more than 30 students in their classes next year may opt for extra pay, additional preparation time, more professional-development money or extra funds for classroom supplies, according to new class size and compensation regulations.

But such benefits won?t be available when classes are part of an alternate program, work study or a specialty academy. Nor will they be offered for music, performing arts, Planning 10, board-authorized leadership and online classes.

The regulations include a formula for calculating extra pay, which takes into account the teacher?s salary and time worked. An average full-time teacher would receive roughly $2,000 to $2,500 for every student beyond 30. Teachers-on-call are not eligible.

The B.C. Teachers? Federation has dubbed the plan ?cash for kids? and says it would do nothing to improve learning conditions for students.

Tara Ehrcke, president of the Greater Victoria Teachers? Association, said the plan makes it cheaper for a school district to overload classes than hire more teachers. ?If an extra 29 students can be spread around into oversized classes, that will be $2,000 less than the salary of an additional teacher,? she says on her blog. Furthermore, the exemptions mean classes such as art and music could have more than 50 students, she states.

Class size and composition rules were changed when the government passed Bill 22 last month to bring an end to teacher job action.

A final report under the old rules was released last week. It indicates that the average Grade 4-7 class had almost 26 students at the start of this school year while the average secondary school class had 25. The smallest classes were in the smallest school district, Stikine, where the average was 11.2 students in Grades 4-7 and 12. 5 in Grades 8-12. The largest intermediate average was in Langley at 27.6 students and the largest high school average was in Greater Victoria at 27.3.

The average class size in kindergarten was 18.5 students and the average in Grades 1-3 was 20.6. Student numbers in those grades are capped at 22 and 24 respectively. In all other grades, schools were encouraged to create classes with 30 or fewer students and no more than three special-needs students. When those limits were exceeded, the school principal and the superintendent had to attest that the class organization was appropriate for student learning.

With Bill 22, the limit on the number of special-needs students per class was removed.

The 2011-12 report shows that 3,188 of 64,827 intermediate and secondary classes had more than 30 students and 12,529 had more than three special-needs students. That compares to 3,627 classes with more than 30 students and 12,118 with more than three special-needs students during the previous year.

? Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

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