NDP Education Critic Carla Beck speaks about challenges in education today during a public Town Hall event in North Battleford Tuesday evening. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Eye on education

Class size, lack of support, mental health among challenges discussed at NDP education town hall

Nov 6, 2019 | 12:34 PM

Large class sizes, a lack of support, mental health needs for students and staff, and insufficient funding.

These are among the challenges faced in classrooms across the province that were voiced by people who attended the Brighter Future Education Town Hall at the Western Development Museum in North Battleford Tuesday evening.

Saskatchewan NDP Leader Ryan Meili, Opposition Caucus Chair and Education Critic Carla Beck, who is the MLA for Regina Lakeview, and The Battlefords NDP candidate for the 2020 provincial election Amber Stewart hosted the event.

Meili and Beck have visited communities across Saskatchewan to discuss the results of a survey the party sent out, and to gather feedback from educators, parents and students.

While there was a small turnout for the event, it was attended by vocal participants.

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Some were concerned about how important it is to have enough support staff to meet the needs of a complex student population. This could be students with special needs, newcomers whose first language isn’t English, those with learning abilities, or others coming from a unique cultural heritage, such as Indigenous students.

North Battleford Grade 7 teacher Andrew Sneddon told battlefordsNOW he has a teacher’s assistant for one period a day but could benefit from having one all day to provide added support in the classroom so he would have time to give students more personal attention as he has a diverse student population in his classroom.

“I will never turn down more help in my classroom so that I can spend more time with my students, and meet the needs of my students, which don’t just stop at what I teach them,” he said. “They bring with them what they need, and they look to us to meet their needs beyond knowledge. Some kids come hungry, some kids come tired. We need to work on that; we need to meet that need because they can’t learn if they are hungry or if they are tired.”

Beck, following the meeting, said she appreciated hearing from people in the Battlefords.

“Some things are specific to this community, but much of what we heard is similar to what we heard from communities right across the province,” she said. “It’s become common place to see people’s emotion, frustration, tears at these meetings, and also a desire to fix what’s going on in our classrooms.”

Meili discussed the feedback he and Beck received so far during their tour of the province.

“Whether we are meeting with school boards, teachers or parents, we’re hearing the same stories of classrooms that are in crisis – classrooms that have more kids than before,” he said, adding that the challenge is: “We don’t have the facilities or the staff to actually accommodate them, so our classes are more crowded. There are more kids in each class, and those classes are more complex.”

From the NDP survey, Meili told battlefordsNOW that respondents said 78 per cent of those working in the education system said morale has has gotten worse in the last two years. Forty per cent said they rarely or never have enough time to spend with students, and 42 per cent of teachers who responded said they seriously considered leaving school because the stress is so high.

He said the NDP are proposing a cap of 24 students in each classroom for Kindergarten to Grade 3. They want to see sufficient supports so students get the help they need.

Meili and Beck met with Living Sky School Division, Light of Christ Catholic School Division, the North Battleford Comprehensive High School and local elementary school teachers prior to the town hall.

He said classrooms today have more children with special needs, mental health challenges or who are coming to school hungry.

“As a result of all of these stresses, and despite there being more kids with more needs, there is less funding,” he said, adding that there are 7,000 more students in Saskatchewan classrooms since 2016 but per-student funding has decreased.

“That is putting an incredible amount of stress on teachers, on EAs, on parents and on the kids themselves,” he added.

Meili said the Sask. Party promised 400 new Educational Assistants but instead there are only 46.

“If we don’t invest in kids, if we try to save money by cutting education we end up spending those dollars many times more down the road in health costs, social service and justice costs, and our economy does worse,” he said. “When we invest in kids, when we invest in people we actually grow our economy.”

Meili said the NDP will address the challenges in eduction in their political platform for the 2020 provincial election.

—

Angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow