By Ritu Lamba
The Ottawa-Carleton Catholic school board is talking about moving teachers around for the upcoming school year in order to avoid a $1.7-million funding cut.
The cut would be a penalty imposed by the provincial government because the board doesn’t meet regulations under the Education Act involving average student-teacher ratios for the Grades 7 and 8.
Current class sizes are too big in proportion to the number of teachers according to the school board’s formula. The ratio is about 25 students to one teacher, when it should be 24.5 to 1.
According to David Leach, the board’s superintendent of finance, the penalty will not impact negatively on the school board’s budget or operations because the issue will be resolved by September, before the penalty is enforced.
“The $1.7 million is not a permanent dollar loss in any way, shape or form,” he says. “It is merely an incentive for the board to become compliant at the earliest possible time.”
He emphasizes that the board has already started working on a solution that doesn’t carry any added cost. Rather, it involves redistributing and reassigning teachers that are already in the system.
Julian Hanlon, superintendent of human resources for the board, says the legislation permits the board to transfer some teachers from the high school level to the Grade 7-8 level where they are needed.
The board also intends to increase the duties of specialized teachers like librarians and guidance counsellors so they will count in the Ministry of Education’s formula, he says.
In order to count, they must spend at least half of their working day in front of the same group of students according to Ministry requirements. About 30 teachers are needed in Grade 7 and 8 classrooms.
Thomas D’Amico, principal of Immaculata high school, says that he will have a better idea of which teachers will be affected by these changes in late March and early April, when student course selections are entered into the computer.
“Then we’ll know how many students want to take each class and how many teachers there are to teach it,” he says.
Some teachers will have to change subject areas, while others will have to change grade levels or even change schools, he adds.
D’Amico says that despite the penalty involved this year, class size changes are nothing new from year to year.
“There are always some sections that have smaller classes, and some that have larger ones. We do our best to try to balance that. We look at different areas of the school, our staffing allotments, and we always keep in mind the best interests of the students.”
He says the upcoming year’s changes will be a little more difficult than past years because of the recent loss of Grade 13.
D’Amico says that some teachers will be required to teach subjects or grades they may not have taught for several years.
Parents shouldn’t worry though, since he guarantees that no matter what, teachers will be fully qualified in the area they are teaching by September.
Principals in the Catholic school board will discuss the issue at their next meeting on March 19.