Education: When will students come first?
It is not very often that I feel the urge to climb up onto the pulpit and make a rant but the past few weeks have been filled with stress and frustration here at our school. As teachers, we get involved in education for a variety of reasons but at the core of our passion is the children we teach. The reality is, if you didn’t care about the kids that you teach then you wouldn’t last very long in the teaching profession. Teaching can be an incredibly stressful job and one that you simply cannot do well if you don’t have a genuine like for kids and a passion for educating. Over the past few months, there have been some significant events and changes at our school that have created a great deal of stress for some people and will ultimately have a negative impact on students.
Pixabay
Resources are a constant problem for the school system. Especially, the public school system. Spend 20 minutes with a teacher and I am sure you will get an understanding of the rate in which needs are increasing in our schools right now. There seems to be an increase in the number of students who have learning disabilities and more specific learning needs. Mental health concerns are on the rise in schools and the severity of behaviours. Our biggest resource is the front line people who are working with these kids every single day. I’m not talking about teachers here but rather the many support staff that work in school to help make sure that students get the assistance they require.
Over the past two months, we have learned about some of the cuts that are being made to the staff in our school. We are one of the largest elementary schools in our district topping out at over a whopping 1000 students. You can only imagine the number of students with high needs in a school of this size and those needs have steadily increased over the past few years. Just this year alone we have had a large number of new kindergarten student with some pretty extreme behavioural issues. The reality is that our current support staff are already stretched to the limits and now as staffing for next year is being worked out our school board is telling us that we are losing both teachers and support staff. In total so far we have lost a full teacher, our ESL support and now a full educational assistant. Needless to say, there are some very unhappy people at our school right now and there were some tears shed yesterday as this news was shared with the staff.
Pixabay
The loss of a full teaching position means that class sizes will rise next year. Basically, 30 students, or a whole class worth of kids, need to be redistributed through other classes. This means that classes that were already sitting at or near the cap are now going to be overextended. The Ontario Ministry of Education has set a cap on the number of students that can be in a class. In kindergarten classes the student cap is 26 kids, grades 1-3 is 23 students and in grade 4 through 8 the numbers are capped at 25.
I have been teaching grade 8 for 4 years and my class sizes are usually around 28 or 29 kids. This is because the “cap” is very soft. In fact, it is softer than a McDonald’s ice cream in a heat wave. The Ministry inforced cap applies to the board average. This means that the average class size in each grade is what applies to the entire board cap. This creates a huge amount of wiggle room and potential for manipulation in order to meet these averages.
Source
For example, there are some schools that are very small. They are so small that they are blessed with some classes that are significantly below the cap. Let’s say that school A has 18 kids in their grade 8 class. This means that the school board can now put 28 in two other classes somewhere else in the board. So one class enjoys the benefit of numbers that will provide the teacher with the opportunity for more individual time and attention to each student while the teacher in the other class will be struggling to do these same things. What on earth is the point of putting a cap on class sizes that is only reflected in a small percentage of classes? Does this make sense to you?
Somehow, a group of people sitting around a big table decided that they would create this “wonderful” classroom size cap and announce to the world that they were “fixing” the problems with the education system by making things easier for teachers and providing more attention for students. Did any of them take a moment to consider the way the word “average” could be used to manipulate the system? They are creating massive disparities in the level of education students might receive from one school to another. How is it that these “decision makers” couldn’t see how this would play out? This isn’t just happening in our school board, it’s happening all over the province. It appears there is no place for equal education for all in a world where dollars and cents drive the bus.
Source
The percentage of students in our school board who are considered English as a Second Language (ESL) learners has been on the rise. With an increase in new families immigrating to Canada and settling in larger cities like our, there is a greater need for support in schools for these ESL students. Unfortunately, the support in our school has now been cut. For the past several years we have been operating with only a ½ time ESL teacher in our school for more than 100 ESL students. If these numbers don’t make sense to you then you will be even more confused to hear that as of last week and continuing into next year we no longer have any designated ESL support. There is now a support teacher who looks after our school as well as several others. Basically, this person is in charge of making sure that all the “paperwork” for these students is kept in order. It makes me cringe to think that tracking the progress of these students and making sure their files are in order is more important than supporting their needs in the classrooms. Again, another brilliant decision by someone sitting at a big fancy table wearing a really nice suit making a decision that will only have a positive impact in one way. A budget summary.
Pixabay
Educational assistants (EA’s) are the glue that often holds everything together in our schools. With growing class sizes and increasing needs, it is becoming more difficult for teachers to do what they are there for. Teach! So much time is now spent on dealing with behaviours and classroom management that it makes it very tough for teachers to get through the curriculum as effectively as they would like. The number of students with special learning needs is also increasing. Teachers are having a harder time providing more individual attention to all the students in the classroom because there are so many students that require a great deal of individual attention.
This is where the educational assistants play such a huge role. Educational assistants are able to help with the classroom management. Especially if you have a significant behaviour issue in the classroom. These support staff are able to help defuse behaviours and minimize interruptions to the class while the teacher continues to teach lessons and assist other students. Just imagine for one second if your child was in this class and wasn’t getting the attention they deserve because the teacher was so busy dealing with the behaviours of one or two students. The ability to have EA support for these students makes a world of difference. Now, I must say that this support is for those students that have more extreme behaviours and not just your typical classroom management kind of stuff. Sadly, there are more and more students demonstrating extreme behaviours in class these days.
Source
Even more beneficial than dealing with behaviours is the ability for educational assistants to work with students. Helping students with concepts being covered in the class. This support creates the opportunity to have more individual attention for all students. When 5 hands in a room are up and asking for help, there are two people responding and assisting rather than just one. What parent wouldn’t want this to be the situation in their child's class?
EA's often will spend parts of their day in several different classes providing assistance during key times of the day. The more students that can be positively affected the better in my opinion. Unfortunately, most of our EA’s time is spent dealing with the behaviour side of things it seems. To top that off next year our 1000 students will be receiving the support from one less educational assistant then before. The powers that be have deemed it not necessary for our school to have the same allocation of support staff. Did I miss something? Did a whole bunch of students just up and leave the school? The needs at our school next year will be essentially the exact same as this year, yet some people sitting around a board table crunching “numbers” have forgotten the fact that these numbers are real living kids who need as much support as possible. Not less!!! Shame on them for putting their budget ahead of the real needs of children.
Teachers will continue to fight the good fight and strive to help every student to the best of their ability because that is what they do. The fact that there were tears cried this week by teachers demonstrates all you need to know about the heart of a teacher. Maybe there will be a day when education is not driven by money and decision makers who think money first. Maybe someday it will be about the students first. We can't give up on that dream.
Source
To top the week off for me personally, one of my students with Autism was turned down for a placement in a specialized learning program in high school next year. Not because he didn’t meet the requirement but rather because there just aren’t enough spots. Wow, so this young man with so much potential is going to continue in a regular classroom with less support and somewhere there is a group of people sitting down to a fancy dinner in a nice restaurant clinking glasses to celebrate their success at making all the number come together. Well, to them I say don’t choke on your meal when you are asked why the “numbers” are down on the standardized test you so eloquently use to judge our student's performance but that is a rant for a different post.
Click and join an amazing education community
Same thing here, we just had teacher strikes, but I am for giving the teachers a raise, but I as a tax payer am against giving more money at least in my state for education. Here it is not a matter of not enough money, but the way they spend it. For example we have way too much admin, and we need to bump the retirement age up. Can't keep paying for 2.5 people for one job. Best part is a business acquaintance's wife is retiring at age 55 from administration, one of the perks is her medical is 100 percent covered until medicare. Well I don't get that with working in the private sector, and she is not the only one gettin that I can guarantee it. Cut the fat, and there would be plenty of money for the KIDS at least in Arizona.
You are so right. There is so much mismanagement of funds. So much money is wasted on things that really don't contribute to the needs of students and classrooms. It is frustrating to see when this happens and then in an effort to save money there end up being cuts to the front line people who the students need so much.
Education should be priopiorida in any country of the world @broncofan99, teachers should be better paid, and teachers should teach with love. Whenever you publish you surprise me every time you do it better and with more quality. God bless you always.
Thank you for your words. I appreciate it.
You got a 1.56% upvote from @oceanwhale With 35+ Bonus Upvotes courtesy of @steemcaptcha! Delegate us Steem Power & get 100%daily rewards Payout! 20 SP, 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, 300, 500,1000 or Fill in any amount of SP Earn 1.25 SBD Per 1000 SP | Discord server
This comment has received a 13.89 % upvote from @steemdiffuser thanks to: @steemcaptcha.
Bids above 0.1 SBD may get additional upvotes from our trail members.
Get Upvotes, Join Our Trail, or Delegate Some SP
This is part of the reason I've just quit..... I teach 16-19s.... sometimes with class sizes of 20 + (sounds like I've got it easy, right?) - however, with 5 classes per teacher at this level, that's 100 students a week.
However here in Britain it's not so much the learning needs children who lose out, the resources here are actually pretty good for that, it's more like the kids in the middle who just gradually get less and less every year.
It's just impossible!
I think more people just need to keep pointing this out... education is the most obvious ting to invest in.... what was the quote... if you think education's expensive, then try ignorance.
So true, when so much attention goes to few other are destined to miss out. It’s not fair.
It would be pretty easy to defend the statement that education is the most important facet of our lives, at least in 1st World countries (I think probably in all). How do you justify that statement with cutting education? You don't.
If only education were treated with the same urgency as the military. There is no doubt it should be.
Thanks for the heart felt rant, my friend.
Oh, if education could get some of the priority given to military we would have brilliant kids.
Hey. I'm sure you are very very frustrated at the moment. I've always been interested in education and recently, I got a very fortunate opportunity to advise a startup that is related to education. After that, I've been reading reports after reports, news after news, that budget cuts are under way. The way I see it, it may differ from your view, but instead of kids, I do think that teachers are the biggest priority. You need good teachers with good ideals to ultimately have great students. There needs to be a way to get more budgets in for the education system, more specifically the teachers.
Following you hoping that your next "rant" can be hopefully on a more positive note. Good luck~!
Thanks for reading and the thoughtful response. As a teacher myself, I agree about the importance of teachers and all of the work that we do. It just seems that the job is becoming more challenging all the time.
You are right, teaching is not only a job but a passion.
If someone loves the children, this is indeed the right field for him/her.
I totally agree. You can't do this job if you don't like children.
hello @ bigtom13. I find the problematic to which you refer in your post quite surprising. I am from Latin America and here we tend to think that the large developed countries with a stable economy have everything under control and very especially that health, education and security are very close to perfection. It is very sad to know that not even the great nations are exempt from suffering this type of situation, it is good that people like you make them public.
I am new member of steemiteducation gives a look at my post, I would like to know your opinion. Greetings.
SPECIAL CARE FOR HYPERACTIVE CHILDREN | DISCOVER THE BEST RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE YOUR LITTLE BEHAVIOR.
As long as money plays a part then there will be inequalities. Governments often prioritize other things over education.
A lot of points noted out
Lovely to 😀😁
They okay such an important role!!
Are there not much provisions for mentally or physically challenged kids?
They ought to be in a special care centre in order to get a more tailored training.
Or am I wrong with this.
There are some specialized classrooms for these students but there is not enough funding for all students with these needs to be in those classes. Therefore, many of these students are in regular classrooms with support form EA's.
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvote this reply.