Alberta government restoring yearly class size and complexity tracking in wake of teacher strike

In an attempt to improve learning conditions for students after a historic Alberta teacher strike, the provincial government is collecting classroom data to guide where additional funding should be spent.

It’s a reversal from 2019, when the United Conservative government halted the collection of class size data and stopped funding that was aimed at keeping classes smaller for younger students.

In an interview on Friday, Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said the province wants school division data on not only class sizes, but also the numbers of teachers and educational assistants — inside and outside classrooms, the number of students with diagnosed disabilities or medical needs, counts of English language learners and refugees, as well as students with challenges who are awaiting assessment.

“The primary consideration for me is to get a better understanding of what is the type of complexity and composition that we have, and how can we ensure that resources are being allocated in the best possible way,” Nicolaides said.

Classroom conditions, as well as pay, were defining issues of the contract dispute. After rejecting two contract offers this year, teachers went on strike Oct. 6. Their employers locked them out three days later.

Early Tuesday morning, the legislature passed Bill 2, the Back to School Act, which ended the strike and lockout, imposed a new four-year contract on 51,000 teachers, and invoked the notwithstanding clause to stave off legal challenges.

Alberta Teachers’ Association president Jason Schilling said Friday the association will use every legal avenue available to challenge the law, and said he’d have more to say next week on the details.

Nicolaides, meanwhile, has told all school divisions they must submit school- and class-level data on staff and students to the government by Nov. 24.

He promised to make the data public by January, and to collect and publish the data annually.

The minister said he’s assembling a task force, which will likely include other cabinet ministers, to use the information to best allocate additional funding to schools.

As many urban and suburban schools become increasingly cramped, and rapidly growing school divisions grapple with provincial funding that does not keep pace with growth plus inflation, teachers say their classes have become unmanageably large. They say more students have increasingly varied needs, and schools don’t have the right professionals to help those students succeed, which has left them overwhelmed and demoralized.

Nicolaides has promised to fund schools for a net new 3,000 teachers and 1,500 educational assistants during the next three years, as well as pay for additional assessments for students awaiting diagnosis and help.

He has previously said the cost of the additional staffing and services would be $100 million per year. The finance minister’s office had not confirmed this by publication time.

Nicolaides said the government is still deciding how to compile the data and what to make public, but said citizens will be able to see pupil-teacher ratios.