The Saskatoon Teachers' Association

Saskatoon Teachers' Association (STA) President Gary Morrison today announced that he and his Executive support the two Saskatoon school divisions in their request for a new funding formula from the provincial government.

"Class sizes in our city schools are at unacceptable levels, especially in the context of the inclusive nature of our 21 st century classrooms," Morrison said.

"More than 16% of Kindergarten classrooms (24 classes) in our city have 21 or more students while 40% of our Grades 1 to 8 classrooms (317 classes) have 26 or more students. In some of these classes there may also be up to 5 special needs children," Morrison said, citing September 2005 enrollment figures.  

"Our high schools and collegiates are not any less spared the scourge of large classes, as 61% of our cities' secondary classrooms (1284 classes) have 26 students or more in them, while more than half of them (649 classes) contain 31 or more students," he added. "There are 86 secondary classrooms (4%) in this city that have more than 35 students in them," Morrison noted.  

"When we compare these numbers to school divisions outside of Regina and Saskatoon the average class size is 16.9 students compared to 25.6 overall in Saskatoon and Regina school divisions."

"This occurs in large part because of the provincial government's insistence on inequitable Basic, Technology and Shared Services rates within the Foundation Operating Grants to large urban school divisions, Morrison asserted.  

The recent brief presented to the Minister of Learning by the four large urban school divisions in Saskatoon and Regina points out that Saskatoon & Regina school divisions receive ~$293/per student less due to lower Basic, Technology and Shared Services rates.

"That's in excess of $10,250,000 a year in grants lost to our Saskatoon divisions." "This would go a long way to reducing class sizes and would significantly enhancing learning for all our students in the city," Morrison said.

The discriminatory grant structure has persisted far too long, Morrison said.   "With amalgamations large school divisions will exist everywhere in the province after January 1 st 2006.   It's time the government of Saskatchewan used its savings from lower overall provincial student enrollments to bring about fairness and start treating Saskatoon students with the same dignity and respect shown to students outside the large urban settings," he said.

( See attached documentation regarding: the philosophy of inclusion in classrooms , composition of classrooms and research is saying about how class sizes affects learning). For more information and comment please contact Mr. Morrison at the STA Office at 2317 Arlington Ave or by calling him at 373-3960.