Data confirms growing class size in Calgary
New figures released Thursday by the Calgary Board of Education confirm what parents, students and educators have been saying: high school class sizes are more crowded, with more than half on par or exceeding the province’s guidelines.
“We’re anticipating the class size average will be a little bit higher this year than last year (but) not significantly higher,” said Calvin Davies, CBE’s director of schools in Area 4. The class size numbers, released a week after the CBE posted record high student enrolment, show that 17 of 22 Calgary high schools posted class size averages of 27 students.
Eight schools posted averages of 30 or more students, with Western Canada and Aberhart topping the list with 36 and 34 respectively.
The province recommends high school classes not exceed 27 students. The CBE released class size figures showing as many as 75 students in some classes. Davies attributed reports of class sizes in the low 40s in schools to “a very academic student population” trying to enrol in as many classes per semester as possible.
“We never cap a class unlike say in a university setting,” he added.
Last week, the CBE reported record high enrolment with 110,763, up from 107,132 last year. That increase resulted in 34 more teachers, but most were distributed to earlier grades, said Davies. Public school trustee Sheila Taylor said she was pleased the CBE released class size numbers, but added she’d like to see the administration provide details on student-teacher ratios and core class sizes. “We didn’t see that broken out in the numbers,” Taylor said. “You could have a class of four students taking a very specialized program that’s mixed in with social studies so the average doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story.”
That was echoed by the president of Calgary Public Teachers Local 38.
“You can report averages all you want to but when you see Western Canada high school class average of 36 pupils, you’ve got to have a lot of classes higher than 40,” said Frank Bruseker.