[Point Blank]

There’s a lot of non educators here having some very strong opinions about PD days, Beaverbrook, etc. As I said in my previous post, I’m a teacher currently working for an overflowing high school and I feel like I have some points to contribute.

- PD days are professional development days. These days can be moved to the summer if you want, but we don’t get paid in the summer. Education evolves as the science of education is very complex- many learners learn in predictable trajectories but MANY do not and we need ongoing training to support those students. As with any kind of training, it’s as much as each individual teacher wants to put into it. Any PD can be as valuable or not valuable depending on how the teacher decides to receive it. I personally don’t think it’s right to have dated practices for an evolving world and an increasingly diverse classroom. But the loudest voices are often the most disgruntled so you’ll hear more from teachers who decide not to take any valuable talking points from PD. But there are many who do take PD very seriously.

- Beaverbrook was under capacity because it was undergoing renovations and it was unsafe to be near capacity at that time. You’ll see this occur with Diefenbaker in the next few years as they’ll be under renovations as well. Numbers for Beaverbrook is back up and will soon be at capacity as surrounding schools are now full, including EP Scarlett and Henry Wise Wood. I wonder for those who wish to bring this up as to imply that there is space, why they wouldn’t bring up how new schools such as Nelson Mandela and JCS are beyond capacity and North Trail will be full next year after literally opening just this year to grade 10’s and 11’s. Or why Churchill is getting 6x portables installed to meet enrollment growth.

- Funding has indeed increased, but funding PER student has decreased. Especially under the UCP that keep touting how they’re increasing funding- it’s not catching up with increased enrollment growth. Class sizes are slowly in increasing as a result. This is felt most strongly in elementary classes, where numbers went from mid 20’s to 30’s with more IPP’s and EAL’s.

- Class sizes are important to consider but isn’t the only factor in determining achievement. As a high school teacher, students complete work at a much faster rate and marking 100+ tests and lab reports take time. If I even take 3 minutes to mark and write helpful feedback to each student, that’s 300 minutes per test I’m giving feedback for that I’ll be doing outside of the classroom as I teach 3 x 35 students (some teachers have classes of 40+). Keep in mind we also have to do an extracurricular. I coach so that is 90 minutes per day outside the classroom, during game days I’ll sometimes be at school until 9:30pm. Class size does strongly encourage high school teachers to Scantron based tests that provide poor feedback. Ultimately, student achievement isn’t only determined by class sizes as many high school students don’t read my feedback or ask for help when they should, but it is oftentimes the easiest topic to rally around. I personally think other factors such as assignable time, increasing classroom complexity and lack of Ed assistants to address those complexities make a larger impact.

- Administration and management is easily a target for many people as saying it’s “bloated” but I’d like to know whether people making these claims actually know what the budget is for management level employees. As with PD days, how teachers decide to access support from admin and downtown specialists is important. I’ve personally seen specialists help with the following: advocating for additional staffing in highly complex EES classrooms (students with very exceptional learning and medical needs), looking over created assessments and providing guidance on curriculum alignment, teaching teachers how to run specific learning strategies such as literature circles. They no doubt get ragged on a lot from teachers and the public as being unnecessary. But having personally accessed their expertise and being a willing participant in improving my practices, I’ve found them to be very helpful. Not all teachers access these willingly as teaching is a very personal practice and they feel infringed upon when receiving outside recommendations on their practice. The article talking about specialists being many years removed from the classroom is just completely false, and specialists and strategists have 3 year term limits before they must return to the classroom. Finally, admin in our school is literally swamped with kicking vaping kids out of the bathroom daily, finding who was selling machetes in the parking lot, chasing after a teen with a balaclava on wielding a baseball bat, scrambling for milk to treat a student who got maced, shutting down an entire hallway that got maced (yes these have all have happened…in one year), and answering over 100 emails per day from parents about why their kid isn’t getting 100% in a class. Those are all things I’m grateful that someone ELSE is doing instead of me.